Mobile Tech & Gadgets

“He who postpones everything will not leave anything completed or perfect”

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Yeah Hugo Gernsback Had it not been born, it is likely that what we know today as “science fiction literature” would be something different, less exciting and certainly less popular. After all, he forms, together with HG Wells and Jules Verne, the shortlist of “parents” of the genus. Despite this role, his relevance as a publisher, businessman and even inventor, Hugo is often remembered for one of his most delirious creations: ‘The Isolator’, a futuristic cucumber-shaped anti-procrastination helmet. Your goal, repel distractions. If Gernsback had read Democritus he could have saved it. In a place in Abdera… Classical antiquity was an era rich in talented thinkers, but few have been as prescient as Democritusa polymath born (it is believed) in Abdera around 460 BC Throughout his long life Democritus traveled, studied various disciplines and above all developed one of the theories of his teacher Leucippus that fascinates us most today: atomism. 1,400 years before John Dalton was born, its defenders maintained that the cosmos was made up of indestructible particles that combine in a vacuum, atoms. Throughout his life Democritus reflected on ethics, mathematics and art. His encyclopedic erudition has made him one of those thinkers to whom (with greater or lesser reliability) countless proverbial quotes. Some are ambiguous and open to various interpretations. Others, like the one he supposedly dedicated to procrastination, are forceful… and almost prophetic. Ear pull. The phrase in question sounds almost like a slap on the wrist, but in reality it is not surprising for that reason. It does so because it is valid in full 2026. Perhaps Democritus pronounced it more than 2,300 years ago in the forum of some cop Greek, but it could perfectly come from the lips of a coach determined to motivate his followers: “He who postpones everything will leave nothing finished or perfect.” In other words, be careful with procrastinating because, although at first it may be a relief, in the end it will make you feel frustrated. The approach fits well with the way of thinking of Democritus, who encouraged seeking the euthymiaa term that comes from the Greek ‘eu’ (good) and ‘thynos’ (mood) and that basically advocates a balanced state of mind. It is difficult to experience harmony, stability and calm if tasks drag on that are never completed. What’s more, for Democritus the smart It is not aspiring to a fickle and thoughtless pleasure, but to a calm spirit. Current yes, new no. In reality Democritus was not the only (or first) philosopher of classical antiquity who reflected on what we know today as “procrastinate”. Long before him it is said that the poet already did it Hesiod and one of the most influential intellectuals of the Roman Empire, the statist and philosopher, also spoke on the subject in a certain way. Marcus Aurelius. “Do not be negligent in your actions, nor muddle in your conversations, nor wander aimlessly in your imaginations, nor, in short, constrict your soul or become dispersed, nor in the course of life be overly busy,” it reads. Meditations. His words (like those of Seneca) are interesting because they reveal that the temptation to ‘waste time’ and postpone tasks has been troubling man for millennia. Why is it important? That a philosopher born almost 2,500 years ago would worry about procrastination (albeit with different words) is curious, but if Democritus’ words resonate strongly so many centuries later, it is because of something else: their astonishing clarity. First because they focus on a problem that (we now know) is almost inherent to humans. Second, because as the wise man from Abdera already sensed, postponing tasks can be a destructive habit that ends up weighing down our spirits and making it difficult for us to achieve the valuable euthymia. A percentage: 20%. Joseph Ferrari, professor of psychology, warned a few years ago in an interview published by the American Psychological Association about the extent to which we are prone to postpone tasks that (for one reason or another) we do not want to face. “One of my favorite sayings is ‘We all procrastinate, but not everyone is a procrastinator.’ We all put off tasks, but my research has found that 20% of people in the US are chronic procrastinators. They put off tasks, they make procrastination their way of life.” To understand its scope, Ferrari remembers that this 20% is “a greater number than that of people diagnosed with clinical depression or phobias” and warns of its implications. It’s one thing to postpone tasks punctually and another to “chronically procrastinate.” Whoever is in that last category, he warns, is no longer dealing with a time management problem, but with “a maladaptive lifestyle.” “Irrational circle”. The issue would not be relevant if it were only a matter of laziness, something that prevents us from being more productive. The problem, remember Charlotte Lieberman in The New York Timesis that it also “makes us feel bad” and involves knowingly making an incorrect decision. “People get caught in this irrational cycle of procrastination due to an inability to improve negative moods around a task,” matches Fuschia Sirois, professor of psychology at the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom. There are even those who, like researcher Tim Pychyl, they think that procrastination is actually not a time management problem, but rather an “emotion regulation” problem. Different theories have been formulated regarding its reasons and effects. For example, there are those who relate it to “the immediate urgency of managing negative moods” and those who believe that procrastination “exacerbates” anguish and stress. “The temporary relief we feel is what really makes the cycle very vicious,” Lieberman warns us. Science to the rescue. What Democritus perhaps could not imagine in the 4th century BC is the extent to which our own organism sets traps for us. In recent years, science has asked itself on several occasions why we are so tempted to postpone annoying tasks and has obtained fascinating answers. For example, in 2018 a group of researchers published a study … Read more

Sleeping straight is a modern invention, not an evolution

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Regarding sleep, there are some deeply rooted beliefs such as that falling asleep in less than five minutes is good (spoiler: not at all), that we need to sleep eight hours (we are probably sleeping too much) or that sleeping straight through the night is ideal. There are no two without three and indeed: neither. In fact, if you wake up around three like magic, it’s not strange. After all, getting eight hours of uninterrupted sleep is a modern invention. Sleep science, history and biology all point in the same direction: we have never slept straight through. Understanding and assimilating this can change the way we approach our nights. Why it is important. Because we live in a time in which sleep disorders and the use of sleeping medicines are the order of the day, this reminder has therapeutic value. There are people with insomnia who do not have a disorder, but rather an ancestral biological pattern that clashes with modern life. It is not a problem of the dream, but of our expectations. Be careful, this is not an excuse for not treating pathological insomnia, but it is an excuse to help people reduce their anxiety regarding sleep and taking medication that they may not need. When the night was divided in two. Until about two centuries ago, it was not normal for people to sleep straight through. The pattern was the following: people went to bed shortly after dark, slept for about four hours, and then woke up for a little while to go back to sleep later, until dawn. It is known as biphasic sleep and is widely documented throughout the planet. Virgil already spoke of “the hour in which the first sleep begins for weary mortals” in his Aeneidalthough one of the people who has studied it the most is Roger Ekirch, who dedicated 16 years of research and gathered more than 500 references from documents of all types. Why we lost biphasic sleep. In two words: artificial light. Since the 18th century, when humanity had oil, gas or electric lamps, the night became useful time. And as we already know, light is not harmless to the brain: inhibits melatonin production and alters our circadian rhythms, advancing them. The more light we get before bed, the later we fall asleep and the less likely we are to wake up in the middle of the night. The Industrial Revolution did the rest: the rigidity of schedules ended up concentrating rest in a single block. What human evolution had established throughout our existence, the frenetic life of production and its advances had disrupted it forever. Return to the origins. When science subjects volunteers to conditions that simulate long winter nights, without lights, clocks, and completely dark, people spontaneously return to biphasic sleep with a quiet period of wakefulness. This 2017 study in a Madagascan farming community without electricity corroborated this pattern in real-world conditions. Light not only regulates sleep, it also affects our perception of time. Research from the Environmental Temporal Cognition Lab at Keele University evidence that with low lighting it seems that time passes more slowly, an effect that is magnified in people with a low mood. This explains why for many people winter feels eternal and depressing. And why if you wake up at 3 am time seems longer. What to do when you wake up in the middle of the night. If this nocturnal awakening has a biological basis, the key is in how we respond. The usual treatment through Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia Give specific guidelines: if you haven’t slept for more than 20 minutes, get up and do a quiet activity with dim light, such as reading. And go back to bed when you feel drowsy. Also, forget about the clock: looking at the time triggers anxiety. But above and beyond procedures, it is important to understand something: this vigil does not have to be an alarm signal, but rather a sign of something deeply engraved in human nature. Accepting it instead of fighting it is often the shortest path back to sleep. In Xataka | The work ethic has been selling for years that getting up at 05:00 AM is good. Science is clear that absolutely In Xataka | If you fall asleep in less than five minutes, you don’t have a “superpower”: it’s a warning signal from your brain Cover | iam_os

Science had always believed that only humans understand geometry. Until we noticed the crows again

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The perception of geometric regularity in shapes, a variant of elementary geometry, has long been considered an ability that only human beings had. And it is no wonder, since from quite early stages of development and across multiple cultures, our species has demonstrated a natural understanding of spatial rules. But this has changed in a species similar to crows. A radical change. Although this innate quality of humans was quite well established, science has now shown that the crows too They have geometric understanding. A cognitive milestone that rethinks what we thought we knew about animal intelligence and the evolution of pure mathematics. A myth. The scientific bases showed a notable gap between human abilities and those of the rest of the animal kingdom with regard to euclidean geometry. Previous research had already seen that primates lacked the ability to recognize geometric regularity in tests of visual perception of shapes, something fundamental, since they may be the first that come to mind when thinking about this property. And this was crucial to determining that humans have an innate ability to process geometric regularity, since the recurring inability to species like baboons After intensive training he laid these foundations. However, the researchers decided to explore these abilities in birds known for their impressive cognitive and arithmetic skills. Touch screens. To test birds’ spatial intuition, scientists from the University of Tübingen They designed an experiment based on the detection of visual anomalies. In this case, two 10- and 11-year-old male crows were trained using touch screens located inside conditioning chambers. Here the birds could observe an array that displayed six simultaneous shapes on the screen and the task was to detect an “intruder”, that is, to peck at the shape that differed in its visual parameters with respect to the other five base stimuli. The tests. For the final test, five reference quadrilaterals were used, ordered by their level of regularity: the square, the isosceles trapezoid, the rhombus, the right hinge, and a completely irregular shape. From here on, the “intrusive” figures were artificially generated moving the lower right vertex of the original figure at a fixed distance equivalent to 75% of the average distance between the vertices. Results. The most impressive thing seen was the immediacy of understanding the problem, as the crows were able to apply the concept of detecting the intruder immediately upon being exposed to the new sets of quadrilaterals. Both subjects dramatically exceeded the 16.7% chance level during their first trials, demonstrating that they understood the task without hesitating or mindlessly pecking. Furthermore, during the first 60 trials, the first crow achieved 48.3% success and the second crow 56.7%. The most impressive thing. The most revealing data from these tests was precisely that the birds showed significantly better performance with shapes that presented properties of pure Euclidean geometry, such as right angles, parallel lines or symmetry. It is crucial here to highlight that this performance advantage did not require extensive prior training, but rather the regularity effect was present from the very beginning of the testing phase. Because? Faced with the logical question of why crows achieved what other primates failed, the authors of the study recognize certain important methodological differences compared to classic experiments with baboons. In this case, they point out that the crows were subjected to a strict progress criterion during training, needing to maintain 75% correctness over five consecutive sessions. In contrast, baboons only needed to reach a criterion of 80% correct responses only once, without the need for consecutive sessions. And although this difference may make a direct and exact comparison between the species difficult, the main finding is incontestable: crows recognize geometric regularity. Images | Tyler Quiring In Xataka | Punch, the monkey clinging to a stuffed animal and a victim of bullying, has achieved the impossible: uniting the Internet under the same cause

In 2025, China installed more wind electricity capacity than the US has deployed in its history. And it’s just the beginning

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The world faces a textbook climate contradiction: the planet desperately needs cheap, clean energy, but when someone manages to produce it on a massive scale, Western powers put up barricades. We are witnessing a pattern identical to the one that has already shaken the electric car industry. China leads the most competitive green technology, the West fears it and slows it down with tariffs, and, ultimately, the climate ends up paying the bill for this blockade. The figures speak for themselves. According to the latest data published by Wood Mackenzieglobal order intake for wind turbines reached 215 gigawatts (GW) in 2025. This is the second highest figure in recorded history. And the big winners of this milestone were not going to be anyone else. Yes, we are talking about China. While total global volume saw a slight decline of 8% in 2025 – driven by a strategic pause in the Chinese domestic market – the international expansion of Chinese original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) has been relentless. The global consulting firm details that orders from these companies outside their borders skyrocketed by 66% year-on-year, tripling the volumes of 2023. The dominance is almost absolute: eight of last year’s top ten global manufacturers are Chinese, with Goldwind, Envision and Windey crowning the list. But this industrial power cannot be understood without the colossal infrastructure that supports it. China has carried out an engineering feat unprecedented: in 2025 alone, the Asian giant added 542.7 GW of capacity to its electricity grid. In less than half a decade, Beijing has built more energy infrastructure than the United States has deployed in its entire history. From imitation to innovation. The narrative that China only competes by price gouging has expired. The country has made a qualitative leap towards cutting-edge innovation. In these last months we have collected in Xataka the milestones of the Asian country in terms of the construction of large wind turbines in the middle of the sea. This certifies the end of the Western monopoly in emerging markets. While European manufacturers such as Vestas or Nordex maintain leadership in their natural territory, they are losing ground globally to Asian offers with high technical specifications and low costs. For Beijing it is not just about ecology; It is a national security strategy to guarantee the supply of intensive industries, such as Artificial Intelligence, and free ourselves from dependence on imported fossil fuels. This is how they conquer the Global South. Faced with a domestic market that is beginning to mature, the Asian giants have set their eyes on the Middle East, India and Latin America. Finlay Clark, principal analyst of Wood Mackenzie, gives the key to this expansion: Chinese manufacturers are making waves thanks to the rapid deployment of giant platforms of more than 10 MW. These megaturbines allow developers to minimize costs on gigawatt-scale projects. The result is devastating: in 2025, Chinese companies will capture the 95% of regional capacity in the Middle East and Africa. The symbol of this surprise was planted in Saudi Arabia, where the Goldwind company achieved a historic order of 3.1 GW to supply two sites. Furthermore, in its ambition to dominate deep waters—where wind potential is multiplying—China is already manufacturing fully domestic all the key components of its floating platforms. An imminent train wreck. Geopolitics has fully entered the spreadsheet of energy promoters. Wood Mackenzie warns that the policy It is making acquisitions drastically more expensive and complicated. Barriers such as the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and the expansion of US tariffs costs are skyrocketing import of steel and heavy components. The market is facing critical tension. On the one hand, regulatory pressure pushes costs up; On the other hand, the profitability of the projects requires increasingly cheaper turbines. Despite this panorama, there are reasons for optimism in the Old Continent: although the intake of offshore wind orders fell by 17% in 2025 due to the restructuring of European tenders, analysts They predict a strong rebound by 2026, boosted by new grant schemes such as the UK’s round 7 auctions. The Western Counterattack. However, China’s apparent invulnerability has cracks. As we detail in Xataka, Beijing suffers from a silent but critical dependence on Western technology. The Chinese wind industry has the muscle to assemble like a beast, but it lacks the “brain”: it needs to import 100% of the logic modules that control the turbines in real time and 70% of the transistor modules for the electrical grid. However, the real obstacle for the West, experts warn, is no longer just capital, but “human bottleneck”: Decades of offshoring have emptied the United States and Europe of engineers and specialized industrial labor. Condemned to understand each other. The energy transition has ceased to be an environmental mission and has become a total geopolitical battlefield. China dominates scale, speed and execution, while the West still holds the keys to critical technological innovation and capital markets. The great irony is that this trade war of tariffs and blockades risks slowing down decarbonization at the most critical time for the planet. At the end of the day, the interdependence between both blocks is their greatest weakness, but also the only guarantee that, sooner or later, they are condemned to understand each other. Image | Land Rover Our Planet (CC BY-ND 2.0) Xataka | China dominates the world of renewable energy, but it has an Achilles heel: it depends on the West more than it admits

Nobody wants to take up weapons, but they are making money selling them

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Europe has accelerated your spending in defense up to levels that had not been seen since the end of the Cold War, driven by conflicts on its borders and a growing strategic uncertainty. The reflection has been a global arms market that is experiencing one of its more expansive cycles in decades, with long-term contracts and industrial chains that work at full capacity. In this context of rearmament and international repositioning, some countries face to a reality that goes beyond the numbers. For example, Spain. An industry that shoots record numbers. They counted this week in Spanish that, at the end of 2024 (last year for which official data is available), the Spanish defense industry touched 7,000 million of euros in exports, 10.6% more than the previous year, consolidating a model in which almost 70% of the sector’s sales depend on the foreign market. Three large companies (Airbus, Indra and Navantia) concentrate more than 70% of international business, and if Rheinmetall Expal and ITP Aero are added, five companies account for more than 80% of exports. According to the Ministry of Defense, the bulk comes from international programs such as the A400M or the Eurofighter, with the aeronautical subsector representing almost two-thirds of the total, while conventional weapons and missiles are growing strongly. Spain maintains ninth place in the world as an exporter, with 3% of the global marketand although it has lost positions compared to competitors such as Italy or Israel, its absolute numbers continue to increase. Ukraine as a showcase and accelerator. The war in Ukraine has been a catalyst. Since 2022, Spain has authorized more than 910 million euros in sales of defense material to kyiv, with a special weight of ammunition and projectiles, including more than 130,000 155 mm. Added to this are battle tanks, armored vehicles, missiles and direct donations that include everything from Harpoon systems to medicalized armored vehicles. Only in 2023 exports to Ukraine represented more than 150 millionand in the first half of 2024 they exceeded 130 million, increasing the relative weight of kyiv within the export group. In other words, Spain not only participates politically in the European effort, but has become a relevant supplier in a high-intensity conflict that consumes ammunition at an industrial rate. The paradox of the empty uniform. It we count this week. While the factories work at full capacity and the international contracts multiply, the interest of the Spanish population in joining the Armed Forces does not live his best moment. The social distance from the military profession, demographic aging and competition in the civilian labor market contrast with the strength of the defense industrial complex. Those 7 billion of euros summarize an uncomfortable reality in Spain: because there may be a lack of hands to take up weapons, but they are making money selling them to the rest of the planet. The country participates in fighters, produces radars, large-caliber ammunition or naval systems for third parties, while the internal debate revolves around vocations, working conditions and professional attractiveness. A model with recruitment on the other hand. The analysis of Defense in Spain indicates that the strength of the sector does not rest on the size of the national army, but rather on its integration into consortia Europeans and global supply chains. Ukraine, India, Saudi Arabia, France, the United States and Germany are among the main destinations for Spanish material, which shows a geographic diversification that cushions any internal fluctuation. The industry acts as a technological engine and generator of qualified employment, but also as an actor fully inserted in a global market that is experiencing a rebound sustained by conflicts and geopolitical tensions. Between industrial power and social debate. Spain thus finds itself facing a strategic duality. On the one hand, it consolidates its role as a relevant actor in world trade of weapons and strengthens its position in key international programs. On the other hand, face a domestic debate about the link between society and defense that is not resolved with accounting balances. The paradox is no small thing: a country that escalates million-dollar contracts abroad while dealing with the need to make more attractive the uniform at home. And in this tension between global market and national commitment is drawn one of the quietest dilemmas of Spanish defense policy. Image | Seko Photography In Xataka | Europe has asked its military experts how to become independent from the US for the next war. The answer is déjà vu: the F-35 In Xataka | Spain’s main problem is not weapons, fighters or drones: it is the number of hands it lacks to use them

the subtle change on your screen that your eyes will appreciate after eight hours of Excel

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If you work or study for many hours every day in front of the PC screen, It is very likely that you will end up with tired eyes: reading a lot of text, watching videos, going from one Excel to another (and then to another, and another), writing, editing images or videos and a very long etcetera of tasks sustained over time will almost certainly cause you to have eye fatigue and a tiredness in your eyes that is as uncomfortable as it is unhealthy. If you have no choice but to be in front of the monitor for a good handful of hours each day (something quite common in many cases, in these times), you can always do everything possible on your part to minimize it and even remedy it: Get up every now and then, don’t stare too long at a time and look at distant objects, stand at a distance that prevents you from straining your eyes too much, and more similar tricks. And added to all this, I am going to give you an idea that perhaps you had not considered and that is not going to solve your life, but it will make you gain visual comfort (and I say this from experience): using a monitor with a high refresh rate. Even if you don’t play. Because having more than 60 Hz (120 Hz, 144 Hz and even more) is an excellent idea outside of the field of video games. And (spoiler) nowadays, the price difference between some monitors and others is so small, that I can tell you that it is very worth it that little extra investment. What is refresh rate (and what does it affect) Okay, on paper, purely speaking of specs, 120Hz is better than 60Hz. And 144 Hzbetter than 120 Hz. That has become clear to us. But exactly what are we talking about? We are talking about hertz, which in short determine the number of frames per second that the screen in question is capable of displaying. In other words: the number of still images that appear, one after another, in one second of time. The greater the quantity, the more fluid the image, which can be a video game, a video or the apps we use in our daily lives. The latter, just what we are looking for. In practice, having more than 60 Hz and therefore a higher refresh rate translates into fluidity. Fluidity in everything: transitions, application effects, window and cursor movements, scroll much softer and, ultimately, everything that generates movement on the screen. Something that may seem minor, but in the long run, and after spending hours in front of the monitor, it is noticeable. A one-way road. At this point, we must take into account the ‘price factor’. Because long ago, going above that base 60 Hz from which monitors start was expensive. However now, with refresh rates that even exceed 360 Hzwe find 144 Hz (or 120 Hz, or 165 Hz and even more) options at great prices. Which means that for a fairly contained investment you can make a huge leap in quality. The good and the bad, face to face Although the theory is simple, the differences between one type of monitor and another can be confusing if you are not familiar with it. Then, This table as a summary will clarify it a lot for you.. 60Hz 144Hz THE GOOD 🟢 Cheaper (and you can allocate more budget to other specifications: resolution, size…) Great fluidity in images and a standard to play today THE BAD 🔴 They offer less fluidity and are somewhat outdated in 2026, as they can make the jump to 144 Hz or more at similar prices Slightly more expensive than 60 Hz and, in general, more striking gaming design IDEAL FOR Users who do not feel visual fatigue, who feel comfortable at 60 Hz and do not want to spend more Gamers (or non-gamers) who want to take a leap in visual comfort Which one may interest you more: we do the math As we have already mentioned, price is not a determining factor today when deciding between a 60 Hz monitor and another with 144 Hz or more. Even so, if a 60 Hz one is enough for you, you can dedicate that extra investment in other aspects of the screens, such as the resolution, the diagonal or the format. Actual use: 60 Hz is enough for you and you prefer to spend what 144 Hz would cost you on a ultrawidebecause you need more horizontal space on the screen. What experience you get: similar to what you have been obtaining with previous 60 Hz monitors, but you gain in those other characteristics that are important to you (more diagonal, different format, more resolution…). If, on the other hand, you notice that after finishing the work day your eyes are very tired and it seems that applications, transitions and other movements are not as fluid as you would like, then going from 60 Hz to 144 Hz or more is an excellent decision. Spending little more than you would with a 60 Hz monitor, you double (and even more) its refresh rate and the view thanks you. Actual use: It bothers you that the animations of the operating system, the scroll or the passing of the cursor across the screen goes in fits and starts and you decide to go above 60 Hz. What experience you get: From the first second, you see that everything runs more smoothly and is more comfortable for the eyes. Where before there were almost imperceptible but existing cuts, now everything is going smoothly. It even looks like you’ve upgraded to a better PC! In summary: 👉 Choose 60 Hz if: You don’t notice visual fatigue because you don’t spend too many hours in front of the screen, you don’t want to spend more and you also don’t play games or plan to do so in the short term. … Read more

Science has calculated the real impact of reading books on your brain. And it has a very simple recipe: 30 minutes a day

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It is well known that a sedentary lifestyle It is one of the great enemies of public healthespecially at advanced ages where muscle loss is a great danger. However, there are sedentary activities that are really beneficial and that we sometimes stop, such as reading books. Its benefit is such that science has shown that immersing yourself in the pages of a good book It not only feeds the intellect, but also lengthens life. The demonstration. One of the most important studies who wanted to focus on the benefits of reading, beyond the cognitive benefits or the richness of vocabulary for everyday life, analyzed a group of 3,635 nationally representative participants in the United States over 12 years. And as a result, they saw that the longer the time spent reading books, lower risk of mortality. The results. To understand the magnitude of the discovery, the researchers followed all the patients until 20% of them died and only 80% remained. There they put the cut and began to draw conclusions. The first is that non-readers reached this point at 85 months, while book readers reached this same threshold at 108 months. This is something that translates into a 23-month survival advantage for those who had the habit of reading books, or in other words, readers reduced the risk of mortality by 20% throughout the 12 years of follow-up. Furthermore, this protection was maintained regardless of a person’s gender, wealth, education, or health status. The format matters. Although you may think that any type of reading is appropriate, even the back of a shampoo, the reality is quite different. In this case, the study explicitly compared the impact of reading books versus reading the newspaper or a magazine. The findings here demonstrated that reading books contributes to a significantly greater survival advantage than that seen with newspapers or magazines. While magazines offer short articles that we often skim, books require a higher level of concentration. Something that is enhanced above all because the authors constantly present themes, characters and topics and that is essential to be able to follow the thread of the story that is being presented to us. Because? Here science is quite clear that the key is in the brain, since the “cognitive score” functioned as a complete mediator of this survival advantage. This means that reading books improves cognition and it is this cognitive improvement that prolongs life. Here reading books activates different specific neural processes that create this advantage. Among the most notable points, we find that active reading of books improves skills such as reasoning, concentration, critical thinking and vocabulary. But it also promotes social perception, empathy and emotional intelligence, which can lead to better health behaviors and stress reduction. Fundamental things when we talk about extending life. It’s backed up. In addition to the original study published in 2016, science has wanted to continue investigating the benefits of reading with a study published in 2024 where the complexity of reading in older adults pointed to less cognitive decline. But it has also been decided to analyze even the cultural level of the citizens, where it has been seen that low literacy increases mortalityonce again making the act of reading books stimulate our brain and protect our cognitive reserve. Although it is not necessary to be reading all day to guarantee having a better brain, studies specifically point out that with about 30 minutes a day It is enough to start reaping these advantages and obtain more years of life in which to continue reading. Images | Blaz Photo In Xataka | The problem is not that we are reading fewer books: it is that the books we read are much simpler and easier

India wants to build a mammoth airport for 120 million passengers a year. The problem is that it accumulates years of delays

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India is building one of the most ambitious airport infrastructures on the continent. The Noida International Airport, built in Jewar, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, has the potential to become one of the largest hubs in Asia with a planned maximum capacity of between 60 and 120 million passengers per year. We tell you all the details of this mammoth project. A project with decades of history behind it. The idea of ​​building a large airport in this area has been brewing for years. The original proposal dates back to 2001, when the then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Rajnath Singh, proposed an aeronautical hub geared towards Taj Mahal tourism. After years of political changes, disputes over the location and administrative stoppages, the project was relaunched in 2014. The central government gave its final approval in 2015, and in November 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of the first phase. Who builds it and how. The development is carried out by Noida International Airport Limited (NIAL) under a public-private partnership model. In 2019, Flughafen Zürich AG, the operating company of Zurich Airport, won the tender to build and manage it for 40 years. Civil construction was awarded in 2022 to Tata Projects Limited, with a stated target of net zero emissions. What will be there when it opens. The first phase includes a terminal (T1) with capacity for 12 million passengers per year and a 3,900-meter runway, already operational. The basic infrastructure is practically ready: control tower, baggage management systems, ten boarding bridges and security services. According to account The Sun, the interior design opts for an open-plan aesthetic with an undulating roof that imitates the flow of a river, large air-conditioned waiting areas, self-check-in kiosks, prayer rooms and children’s areas. There will also be a central area open to the outside with vegetation and shade. A phased deployment until 2050. The airport will grow in four phases. To the first terminal and initial runway, three more terminals and up to six runways in total will be added progressively, reaching a combined capacity of between 60 and 120 million passengers per year by 2050, according to the data collected by The Times India. That would put him in the same league as the Beijing Daxing International Airport either the one in dubai. Its great advantage: the Taj Mahal within reach. Agra, home to the Taj Mahal and which receives up to eight million visitors a year, is now almost four hours’ drive from New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport. With the new airport, that trip would be reduced to just over two hours. The project is also designed as an alternative to the overcrowded Indira Gandhi, the main hub of the Delhi metropolitan area. Beyond the passengers. The airport also aspires to become an important cargo node for northern India, relying on its proximity to the Delhi-Mumbai Express Corridor and Dedicated Freight Corridors, as point the Time Out medium. The airlines that have already committed. IndiGo and Akasa Air have confirmed operations at the airport, mainly on domestic routes. Among the destinations mentioned are Bombay, Hyderabad and Calcutta. International routes, including possible connections to Zurich or Dubai, are still pending confirmation. Delays, the big problem. The opening was initially planned for 2022, then for September 2024, and later there was talk of October 30 of that year. The works continue and given the history of delays, there is no choice but to wait for a definitive opening date, which should be shortly. Images | Noida International Airport In Xataka | A megastructure was built 1,700 years ago for eternity: today it continues to dominate Sri Lanka

All the money in the world won’t satisfy AI’s RAM hunger

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There is no RAM for so much AI. At this point in the film, no one can ignore that we are fully immersed in a new component crisis. Unlike the perfect storm that shook the technology industry in 2020, the new crisis is due to something very specific: the voracity of data centers and the artificial intelligence. In recent weeks we have seen negativity everywhere, but now one of the main people responsible for the lack of RAM comes to say that things are not going to stay the same. They are going to get worse. 30% of the goal. Chey Tae-won is not just anyone. This is the CEO of SK groupone of the largest conglomerates in the world and a South Korean giant that controls everything from the energy industry to chemicals and telephony. In addition, it has SK Hynix, one of the largest manufacturers of memories from around the world. If there is an authorized voice in this crisisof course it is yours. And what did he say? Well, there’s still a RAM storm left for a while. In a recent interview, stated that memory supply will be more than 30% below AI demand for this year. That is, by turning all their production to high-performance memory for AI, completely abandoning the consumer sector, they will be far from be able to satisfy what companies like NVIDIA they are claiming. structural problem. As we say, we have been talking about the state of the industry for weeks, but now we understand the extent to which the consumer sector has taken a backseat to memory manufacturers. That “we have given everything and we are going to fall within 30% of the goal” is tremendously revealing and explains the reason why everything with a memory chip is rising in price. Micron, SK Hynix and Samsung are the three companies that lead production by memory. They make both consumer memory (that of the mobile phone, the PC, the routerTV or car) as a professional (high-bandwidth HBMs), but their production is not unlimited: if they want to increase performance in one type of memory, they must lower that of the other. And that’s what’s happening: the AI ​​business is memory hungry, and for every unit of high-bandwidth memory produced, several units of standard memory must be sacrificed for other devices. This creates a bottleneck and an “unprecedented” shortage, according to Micron’s vice president, as the AI ​​industry is consuming all memory production capacity, creating a tremendous shortage in the conventional branch. All sold. As consumers, buy an SSD, a RAM module and a Large capacity HDD is a luxury right now, but to those who control chip production, it’s going well for them because they are selling all production before starting to “print” chips. Chey Tae-won himself has commented that the profit margins on his HBM4 chips are stratospheric, around 60%. Micron has already commented that all of its HBM memory production capacity for 2026 is already sold, and These are statements similar to those of Western Digital a few days ago. This implies that they have already sold components that do not exist for graphics cards that do not exist and that will power data centers that do not yet exist. abandoning ship. Samsung, SK and Micron are expanding their production lines and opening factories, but getting clean rooms It’s a slow process for them to start making chips, and Micron’s new plants, for example, aren’t expected to start making RAM until 2028. And when they do, it’ll likely be memory for data centers, not consumer price relief. In the end, there are only a few suppliers for many manufacturers, and that has another consequence: there will be brands that they have to get out of the car. The CEO of the SK group has commented that “there will probably be PC and smartphone manufacturers that will end up abandoning their businesses”, but he has not been the only one. A few days ago, the boss of Phison, a company that makes memory controllers, pointed in the same line. And it is easy to understand: if a manufacturer with low volume costs much more for memory, it has two options: sell a PC/mobile with less RAM or sell that same product much more expensive. Neither is a good idea. The price of 32 GB of DDR5 RAM from Crucial. Micron’s Crucial no longer exists Not very hopeful forecasts. The big question is when this solution will end. From SMIC, the large Chinese foundry, it is estimated that storm remains for a while because everyone wants to build their infrastructure for the next decade over the next two years. There are analysts who estimate that manufacturers – such as those in the automotive sector – are stockpiling AI out of “panic” that it will run out and now HBM4 memory is being produced, but in a few years there will be superior technology that will make AI faster and more capable… and the industry will turn to it again if the bubble doesn’t burst first. Domino. Meanwhile, companies like TeslaIntel or the Japanese giant SoftBank They want to get fully into the DRAM market and the companies Chinese companies like CXMT have an opportunity to meet the demand for AI for devices such as laptops. And, although we now see how it has impacted the price of loose components, we have to wait to see what happens in already assembled devices. Lenovo has pointed that the price of laptops is going to rise, but there are also warnings about important price increases in mobile phones, above all in low and mid-range devices, where the price of RAM represents a large part of the product cost. As I have said before, we have to cross our fingers so that the mobile phone or PC does not break, since once it is time to change it, paying the price will not be something pleasant. Images | Xataka, Bananovaya In Xataka | We … Read more

Spain is letting the lisp die in Andalusia without knowing that the /θ/ sound is a global rarity that we are losing

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In recent days, the University of Granada has presented a macroatlas with almost half a million audios that shows how the way of speaking of Andalusians has changed. The research is very interesting for many reasons, but today I want to focus on something specific: the slow, but inexorable agony of lisp. What is lisp. While the distinction between ‘s”https://www.xataka.com/”z’ and seseo gains ground in the south, lisping is losing speakers in the only place where lisping is used. It is a sociological question, yes: researchers are clear that stigma is the main force against this phonetic subsystem. But there is something else Because, in reality, what we are seeing is not just the death of the lisp, it is the end of the sound (θ) itself: one of the most unknown oddities of the Spanish language. A Spanish oddity? Although it is not something that is often explained much, the ‘c’ sound (/θ/) is relatively rare in the world — only in 43 of 566 languages ​​(7.6%) in the world. WALS sampling appears and only in 4% of the counts in typological databases (UPSID: 3.99%; PHOIBLE: ~4%). That is, very few living languages ​​have that sound among their phonetic repertoires. To give us an idea, the phoneme of the ñ (ɲ), quintessence of Spanish, appears in 35% of the world’s languages. But… what about the ‘c’? The usual explanation Why (θ)/(ð) are less frequent and why they are disappearing is simple: they are “soft” fricatives; That is, they are less strident sounds than (s)/(z) and, therefore, have less perceptual salience. This is what makes them tend to be lost or transformed easily over time. That does not mean that the Spaniard of the future is going to be sesante; but there is a high probability that it is sesante. The heritage of a language in the trash. It is clear that it cannot be argued from a philological point of view that the disappearance of (θ) is a bad thing. The Earth turns, languages ​​change. But it is striking that in a society in which historical heritage continues to be “valued”, the progressive loss of a sound does not set off alarm bells. And that it does so because we are not capable of accepting the diversity of our own language, normalizing it and defending it in the public sphere, is perhaps worse. Image | Wiebrig Krakau (Modified) In Xataka | “The most serious attack since there is memory”: Pérez-Reverte has started a crusade against the RAE from within the RAE

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