Mobile Tech & Gadgets

There is no “epidemic” of egomaniacs but of a misuse of psychology

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Decades ago, the term narcissism rarely came out of a clinical manual or a psychiatric consultation. Today, you only have to open TikTok to find an army of self-proclaimed experts giving advice on how to identify a narcissist based on cues as vague as a “dead stare” while applying makeup, or warning about “passive aggressiveness.” We live in the age of couch diagnosis. “Lately ‘being narcissistic’ is one of the most used words on social networks and among conversations among friends,” Sandro Espinosa confirms us in an interview for Xatakapsychologist specialized in therapy focused on emotion and trauma. However, what we use today as a trendy insult to describe a “bad person” or a “selfish ex-boyfriend” is actually far from its original clinical meaning. According to Espinosa, in classical psychotherapy, the word narcissism does not refer to anything negative. per se. “It is understood as the value we assign to our own image”, a kind of self-concept that we develop throughout life. Virgil Zeigler-Hill, professor cited by New York Timesagrees: the term has become a “general label for a wide range of unpleasant or frustrating behaviors,” losing its scientific nuance. The era of the psychological “meme” The leap from the clinic to pop culture has come at a price. For Sandro Espinosa, the popularization of these terms has caused them to be distorted until they lose their psychological connotation, becoming “a meme or a moral label.” The phenomenon is tempting. As the psychologist explains, we use the label “narcissistic” to define “someone who has hurt me and did not know how to love me.” This offers immediate relief to the alleged victim. Sara Pallarés, psychologist at the Enric Corbera Institute cited by The Vanguardwarns that “it seems to be fashionable” to put this type of labels. “Everyone has a narcissistic partner, a narcissistic father… They all use it to justify their current traumas,” says Pallarés, warning that this position often hides a lack of courage to resolve one’s own issues. The danger of this mass self-diagnosis is twofold. On the one hand, Espinosa warns about “false positives”: believing that someone has a disorder based on a 60-second video. On the other hand, statistical reality is stubborn: Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is rare. According to data collected by Mayo Clinic, It is estimated to affect only 1% to 2% of the adult population. However, on social media, it seems like we are surrounded. So why are we so obsessed with labeling the other as a sick monster? The answer, according to experts, has more to do with us than with them. “Seeing the world in black and white will always offer us relief and a feeling of control,” explains Sandro Espinosa. By labeling the other as a narcissist, we turn a complex relationship into “a simple story of a villain and a victim.” This simplification has a very powerful psychological function: the total moral innocence. Espinosa details that, if the other is “sick” or a “monster”, then “I don’t have to review my relational dynamics.” It cleanses me of guilt and turns the other into an aggressor, allowing me to “continue in the world without the need to engage in healthy self-criticism.” Psychologist Sara Pallarés poses an uncomfortable question to those who take refuge in this label: “Hey, what do you have to do with this? What responsibility do you have?” According to Pallarés, by blaming exclusively the narcissistic profile, the person loses the opportunity to heal and understand why they ended up in that situation. Furthermore, there is a phenomenon of mass identification. Espinosa alludes to Forer effect (the same principle that makes us believe in horoscopes): Any vague, emotionally charged description of being a “victim of a narcissist” appeals to us because it offers us a narrative in which we are morally innocent and deserving of care. Being an “asshole” is not the same as having a disorder. It is crucial to distinguish between a bad character and a pathology. Sandro Espinosa offers a key to differentiate them: intensity, frequency and duration. “We can all sometimes be selfish, cruel, immature and we don’t have a disorder,” he clarifies. The psychologist uses a visual metaphor to describe the true structure of narcissistic disorder: imagine a glass sculpture. From the outside, the image is seen as grandiloquent, arrogant and charismatic. But “within that figure, at the core of it, we would see a child who is covering his eyes or ears with his hands, who is ashamed, who feels humiliated.” Grandiosity is just a compensatory mask to cover up unbearable pain. In the report of New York Times They break down that not all narcissists They are the same. There are subtypes such as grandiose narcissist (safe, status seeking), the vulnerable narcissist (hypersensitive, anxious, defensive) and antagonist (competitive and hostile). However, a key point is empathy. While in networks it is said that they lack it, mention is made of the concept of “Splenda-type empathy”: an artificial or instrumental empathy. Espinosa agrees and clarifies that, in consultation, it must be distinguished whether the person really feels the pain of the other or if they use empathy instrumentally, “at the service of their need to be desired.” Furthermore, in Thought Catalog mention specific tactics such as “jealousy induction”, where these profiles deliberately provoke jealousy to gain power and control over the partner. Espinosa adds that, in fact, people with this disorder tend to be “very envious” and that this envy is born from a “defensive rage.” Far from demonization, experts advocate humanizing the spectrum. “Narcissism is always a dimension. We all have narcissistic traits,” Espinosa recalls. We all sometimes need to be looked at and recognized. Even those with the diagnosis suffer. In a report by Eldiario.es They collect testimonies from people diagnosed who describe the illness as living in an illusory world to protect oneself from feeling “the worst.” The stigma is such that many hide their diagnosis for fear of being seen as abusers, when they are often vulnerable … Read more

The Spanish philosopher who defends that what is important is in the simple things of everyday life

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Anyone who has visited Bruges and wandered through its streets has ended up coming across a wonderful little park surrounded by white houses. He Belgian city beguinage It is, along with twelve others spread throughout Flanders, a World Heritage Site since 1998 and no wonder. Although “it is not known how this movement began,” as Silvana Panciera explainedsociologist and author of a book about them; The truth is that since the 12th century and for centuries, “they proposed that women exist without being wives or religious, emancipated from any male domination.” The curious thing is that the beguinage, like convents and religious writers, are becoming fashionable. Very fashionable. And no, I’m not talking about the Catholic ‘revival’. In recent weeks, the temporary “coincidence” of ‘Sundays‘by Ruiz de Azúa or ‘Lux‘ from Rosalía, had raised the murmur that “Catholicism was back“But, really, I don’t talk about that. As books like ‘Mystics’ by Begoña Méndezwe are talking about something deeper: something that, behind the Catholic trappings, speaks directly to an entire generation of young women. Something that, in the words of Jorge Burón“opens common horizons instead of individual ones.” Saint Teresa was right. Saint Teresa of Jesus may be the most important Spanish thinker in all of history and, very often, readings that are excessively attached to the Christian background prevent us from appreciating the philosophical power that is hidden behind it. Today, when the tensions between personal life and professional development are especially intense in a generation of women that has abandoned traditional frames of reference without yet embracing new ones, Teresa de Cepeda’s ideas are especially relevant. “Between the pots.” A well-known example is in the ‘Book of foundations’when he says that “…understand that, if it is in the kitchen, the Lord walks among the pots, helping you internally and externally.” In that passage, Teresa defends that there is no war between inner life and outer work, that the underlying criterion is not what we do, but how we do it. However, it is not a defense of “everything doesn’t matter.” On the contrary, what he rejects is the automatic superiority of the “elevated” over the “everyday.” Seeking God (the meaning of life, who we really are) is not something we demand the most absolute solitude: It is something that must be done wherever it is necessary. Where it touches. It is not a cliché: a few days ago we argued that the feeling of the end of the era, acceleration, saturation, existential anxiety or problems of legitimacy are something inherent to our days. The feeling that the future is a fiction is the order of the day. Therefore, it can surprise no one that Saint Teresa is more alive than ever encouraging us to take charge of our day. Image | Teresa, the body of Christ In Xataka | The Catholic Church changed the psychology of Europe. Unintentionally, it sparked an era of technological innovation

These ideas show that they still make sense

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There was a time when USB drives were almost essential. We always carried one with us to move files between computers or save them for a while without depending on the Internet. That scenario has completely changed. Today the focus is on mobile phones and cloud storage, which leaves many pendrives forgotten in a drawer. The question is inevitable: if we meet one again, is it worth giving it a second life? In a new video published on the Xataka YouTube channel We try to answer precisely that question. Ana Boria reviews different ways to recover the usefulness of this peripheral that has apparently been outdated by the passage of time. And the interesting thing is that several of the proposals it raises go beyond the most obvious uses that we all have in mind. Tricks to take advantage of our USB drives One of the first ideas points to something as everyday as it is necessary: ​​freeing up space on phones with little internal memory. “Well, if you have a pendrive and an adapter like this, you can use it to transfer all the photos, videos and files you want, to free up space on your mobile without having to erase your memories,” explains Ana, who also details what type of adapter should be used to do it in a simple and practical way. The video also covers more familiar functions, such as using a USB drive to install Windows, with instructions on how to create the installation media, and other less common functions, such as using portable applications. “It is very useful if you have to use other people’s equipment from time to time or you cannot happily install programs,” our colleague points out from her own experience. There is even room for proposals designed for more technical profiles. Ana shows different possibilities to execute operating systems in Live USB modea common practice in several Linux distributions. And on Windows? There are also alternatives, and the video mentions specific tools that allow you to achieve this without too much complication. “I also want to tell you about a very interesting option, but one that has its nuances… We can use our USB memory as a physical key for two-step verification.” With this idea, Ana enters the field of digital security and puts on the table a less known, but especially useful, use for this type of device. The review continues with other tricks that show that that forgotten pendrive can still have a journey. The video is now available on Xataka’s YouTube channeland the invitation remains open: tell us in the comments if you knew of any of these uses or if they were already part of your daily life. Images | Xataka In Xataka | We put Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music to the test: music streaming has changed and there is no longer an obvious winner

Science had been looking for an alternative to laboratory mice for years without success. Until he found the moths

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In the world of science, the mouse has been for decades the undisputed king of the laboratory. However, it is an expensive, slow and, above all, ethically complex reign. That is why we have been looking for alternatives for years, and the answer may not be in a silicon chipbut an insect that you have probably seen eating the wax of a beehive. The advance. This is what researchers at the University of Exeter have arrived at, who have achieved a milestone that promises to change the rules of the game in the fight against superbacteria: They have genetically “hacked” dinner moth larvae to function as real-time biological indicators. The most impressive thing is that they even have a very visual indicator: they shine when you get sick and go off when the medicine is working correctly. The biological traffic light. The study, published this week in Naturedetails how the research team has achieved what seemed impossible: applying tools of genetic editing advanced these moths with unprecedented precision. And I know this is very important, since using insects to model human diseases had limitations, but this team has combined two key techniques. The techniques. The first of them is the system PiggyBac to be able to insert genes that produce fluorescent proteins into these moths, so they have basically gone from having larvae to biological “neon lights.” In this way, if bacteria or fungi are injected, fluorescence makes it possible to monitor the infection in vivo under the microscope. In addition, the famous technique was also included CRISPR-Cas9 to deactivate specific genes in the insect’s body. This is a tremendously positive thing, as it allows scientists to manipulate the larva’s immune system to see how it reacts to different pathogens, mimicking complex human conditions. The key data. The bottom line is that the modified larvae allow us to see if an antibiotic is working in real time. The indicator we have is fluorescence, which if it decreases indicates that the bacteria is dying from the antibiotic and the larva is surviving. All this in a visual, fast and cheap way. Why the moth. It may sound strange to compare a moth with a mammal such as the mouse, which may be more like us, but the Galleria mellonella He has an ace up his sleeve: your body temperature. Unlike the fruit fly, these larvae can breed and survive comfortably at 37°C, the average human body temperature, which is crucial because many human pathogens only activate their virulence genes at that temperature. Furthermore, their innate immune system is surprisingly similar to that of mammals in terms of structure and function of phagocytes, the cells that literally ‘eat’ pathogens that enter the body. Furthermore, with this animal model the use of 10,000 mice per year in the United Kingdom alone can be avoided. Against the clock of the resistance. The context of this advance is not trivial, since we are facing a race against the resistance of bacteria to our antibiotics. We need at this moment test thousands of new compounds fastand doing it in mice is a brutal bottleneck both because of the time it takes and the ethical questions that arise. On the other hand, these transgenic larvae allow for massive screening. Instead of waiting weeks to see results in mice, scientists here can test hundreds of compounds in larvae and get immediate visual readings on toxicity and efficacy. Images | Wikipedia Kalyan Sak In Xataka | Researchers removed Instagram and TikTok from 300 young people to see if their anxiety decreased. The results speak for themselves

There are people sharing their court cases with AI. The problem is when a judge considers the conversations as evidence

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More and more users have an AI chatbot as a companion for everything, whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Claudeor any other. The problem comes when we decide to share sensitive data with this type of tools, especially with commercial models produced by large technology companies where we will always have the doubt of where our data travels. In this sense, there are those who share their legal data with the assistant, which can lead to something like what recently happened in New York. And a city judge just set a precedent historical by considering that any conversation held with a chatbot is public and therefore not protected by attorney-client privilege. That is to say: everything you share with the AI ​​can end up being used against you in court. The case. Bradley Heppner, an executive accused of fraud worth $300 million, used Claude, Anthropic’s chatbot, to ask questions about his legal situation before being arrested. He created 31 documents with his conversations with the AI ​​and later shared them with his defense attorneys. When the FBI seized his electronic devices, his attorneys claimed those documents were protected by attorney-client privilege. Judge Jed Rakoff has said no. Because No. Just like share Moish Peltz, a lawyer specializing in digital assets and intellectual property, in a post on X, the sentence establishes three reasons. First, an AI is not a lawyer: it is not licensed to practice, owes no loyalty to anyone, and its terms of service expressly disclaim any attorney-client relationship. Second, sharing legal information with an AI is legally equivalent to telling it to a friend, so it is not protected by professional secrecy. And third, sending ‘non-privileged’ documents to your lawyer afterwards does not magically make them confidential. The underlying problem. As the lawyer recalls, the interface of this type of chatbot generates a false sense of privacy, but in reality you are entering information into a third-party commercial platform that retains your data and reserves broad rights to disclose it. According to Anthropic privacy policy In effect when Heppner used Claude, the company may disclose both user questions and generated responses to “governmental regulatory authorities.” Dilemma. The court document reveals Also an aggravating factor: Heppner introduced into the AI ​​information that he had previously received from his lawyers. This poses a dilemma for the prosecution, according to account Peltz. And if you try to use those documents as evidence at trial, defense attorneys could become witnesses to the events, potentially forcing a mistrial. What does it mean to you? If you are involved in any legal matter, according to this ruling, what you share with an AI can be claimed by a judge and used as evidence. It doesn’t matter whether you are preparing your defense or seeking preliminary advice, as each query can end up becoming a factor against you. And it does not only apply to criminal cases: divorces, labor disputes, commercial litigation… any conversation with AI on these topics escapes legal protection. And now what. Peltz points out that legal professionals must explicitly warn their clients of this risk. You can’t assume that people understand it intuitively. The solution he mentions involves creating collaborative workspaces with AI shared between lawyer and client, so any interaction with artificial intelligence will occur under the supervision of the lawyer and within the lawyer-client relationship. Cover image | Romain Dancre and Solen Feyissa In Xataka | Folding clothes or taking apart LEGOs has always been a tedious task. Xiaomi’s new AI for robots has put an end to it

Massive study confirms direct link to heart damage and mortality

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For years science has been warning us that ultra-processed they are a danger because of the effects it has on our body. Something that began as a suspicion about nutritional quality has now become a statistical certaintysince ultra-processed foods not only make you fat, but also directly hit the cardiovascular system. With figures. A new study conducted by Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and published just a few days ago in The American Journal of Medicine has put an alarming figure on the table: high consumption of these products is linked to a 47% higher risk of suffering from cardiovascular diseases. And it is not a study that is based on speculation, but the authors have analyzed the data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey corresponding to the period 2021-2023 cwith a sample of 4,787 American adults. How it was done. The methodology is robust because it does not simply look at what participants eat, but the researchers adjusted the results taking into account confounding variables such as age, sex, race, income level and, crucially, smoking. With all this, and eliminating the effect of tobacco and socioeconomic situation of the equation, the result was that those who consume greater amounts of ultra-processed foods are almost 50% more likely to develop heart pathologies compared to those who consume less. It is not an isolated case. If this study were the only one, we might be skeptical. The problem is that it rains in the wet, since the FAU research It arrives to confirm a trend that we had already seen in previous macro studies, consolidating what in science is called a dose-response relationship: the greater the amount of ultra-processed foods, the greater the damage. For this we have the French precedent with a famous studio of the cohort NutriNet-Santéwith more than 100,000 participants, which has already shown that an increase of just 10% in the ultra-processed diet is associated with a 12% increase in total cardiovascular risk. There is more. A meta-analysis published in 2024which reviewed more than a million participants, found a linear relationship in which for each additional daily serving of ultra-processed foods, the risk of cardiovascular events increases by 2.2%. And if we still want more evidence, in Australia A 25-year follow-up of almost 40,000 people linked high UPF consumption with a 19% higher cardiovascular mortality. The new tobacco. The most striking thing about this new research is not only the numbers, but the comparison they make with tobacco and the public health crisis it generated in the 20th century. And while the anti-smoking campaigns achieved drastically reduce deaths due to lung cancer and heart disease, the food industry has filled shelves with products classified as ultra-processed. Because? The mechanism behind this 47% elevated risk appears to be related to systemic inflammation and altered lipid metabolism. It must be taken into account that industrial processing generates polluting byproducts such as acrylamide and uses additives that increase oxidative stress in our body. Basically, the body loses the ability to “cleanse” itself at the cellular level, decreasing antioxidant enzymes and allowing free radicals to damage the inner layer of the vessels, which accelerates the formation of atherosclerotic plaque. This is combined with a nutritional composition with 5 or more ingredients, rich in added sugarssaturated fats and additives, but poor in fiber and micronutrients. A trio that directly impacts blood pressure and insulin resistance, increasing predisposition to diabetes. Images | Darko Trajkovic In Xataka | Making extra rice is no longer a mistake: cooling and reheating it can reduce its calories according to some nutritionists

Researchers have discovered “lost continents” from 4 billion years ago

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The idea we have of the early Earth involves a huge ball of incandescent magma and conditions incompatible with life. The problem? That there are no rocks from 4.3 billion years ago to confirm this consolidated theory. What we do have are some microscopic crystals called zircons. And zircons are telling a different story, according to this study by a research team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. published in Nature. What zircon says. Regarding the behavior of the Earth’s surface, geology valued two ideas for that period known as Hadean: that there was a plate tectonics where one plate sinks under another or that the Earth had a kind of stagnant lid, a rigid and hot surface where heat only escaped through large columns of magma. Well, neither one nor the other, both: zircons leave evidence of an Earth that already had oceans, liquid water and a crust that alternated both systems. John Valley, the University of Wisconsin-Madison geoscientist who leads the study explains that “There were about 800 million years of Earth’s history in which the surface was already habitable, although we have no fossil evidence and we do not know when life first emerged.” Why it is important. Because they determine that the Earth did not choose a single model, but rather that both processes took place at the same time in different places. Of course, it was not a stable plate tectonics like the one that exists today, but rather it had violent and short episodes of sliding of the edges of one plate under another (subduction) that coexisted with large jets of magma that rose from the interior of the Earth. This discovery is key to understanding how the Earth’s surface moved, the formation of continents and life. On the one hand, without tectonics, the felsic continental crust that floats on the mantle and makes up the lands on which we live would not exist. On the other hand, plate tectonics regulates the climate and recycles nutrients, so knowing when it started working helps understand when the Earth became a place compatible with life. How they analyzed it. The John Valley team analyzed the popular zircons from Jack Hills (Western Australia). These sand-sized minerals are a kind of time capsule, housing the only direct record of Earth’s first 500 million years. They were looking for chemical “fingerprints” that would reveal where and how they were formed, for which they used technology WiscSIMS high resolution. They then compared the results of the analysis with other zirconiums from the Hadic Eon found in Barberton (South Africa). Each one told a different story. Surprises in the “DNA” of the mineral. 47% of oceanic zircons had high levels of Uranium compared to Niobium, indicating that they formed in subduction zones where ocean water sinks into the mantle. On the other hand, the South African zircons show that they were born from virgin rock from the planet’s interior, confirming the classic ‘stagnant lid’ theory by which the Earth’s first solid surface was rigid and immobile. Or what is the same: while in Australia the crust sank and created protocontinents, in what is now South Africa the Earth behaved differently, with a rigid and stagnant crust. That is, the early Earth was a mosaic of tectonic styles. The Earth did not go from being hell to what it is today overnight, but rather it was a hybrid process and generated the necessary conditions for life sooner than we thought. In Xataka | We know it as “the red planet”, but 3.37 billion years ago Mars was almost as blue as Earth In Xataka | 4.5 billion years of Earth’s history, summarized in a spectacular video map Cover | Tomáš Malík and Javier Miranda

It takes away flights, but gives it 500 million to fix engines

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Ryanair is advancing the project of its future engine repair workshop in Seville with an investment of more than 500 million euros. Just like account ABC, the Irish airline, has signed a multi-year parts supply agreement with CFM International valued at around €800 million annually. This is good news for the Andalusian capital, and it would be even better if it were not for the fact that the same company also restructured its operations to eliminate several routes in Seville. industrial project. Ryanair is preparing an entire industrial infrastructure that will turn Seville into one of its two strategic maintenance centers in Europe. We don’t know its exact location yet, but the company says it will be operational by 2029 and will support the fleet operating in Western Europe. It will not be the only one either, since Ryanair will build a second similar workshop in a city in the eastern part of Europe, still to be determined. According to share From ABC, both facilities will allow the company to internally assume the maintenance of almost 2,000 engines of its Boeing 737, a task that until now was carried out by CFM International in centers outside Europe. The agreement with CFM International. The memorandum signed with the French-American manufacturer (50% owned by Safran Aircraft Engines and GE Aerospace), commits Ryanair to directly acquire all its spare parts to support a fleet that will grow to 800 aircraft, according to share the middle. The contract covers the CFM56-7B and LEAP-1B engines that equip the Boeing 737 Next Generation and the 737 MAX. Once the workshops are operational, the value of the agreement will exceed 1 billion dollars annually (839 million euros), according to CEO Michael O’Leary. Adding more industry. As well as mention In the middle, the repair center project adds to the heavy maintenance hangar that Ryanair has operated since 2019 next to the São Paulo airport, where it carries out comprehensive inspections of up to five aircraft simultaneously. However, both facilities will be separated. The hangar will focus exclusively on complete aircraft maintenance, while the new workshop will focus only on mechanical repair and engine supervision. According to share From ABC, it is expected that the infrastructure will have a useful life of at least 30 years. Route cutting. Not everything that Ryanair brings is good news for Seville, as the city will lose seven air connections this summer. São Paulo airport will go from 56 routes operated by the Irish airline to 49 destinations. Among the eliminated connections are Santiago de Compostela, Gran Canaria and Tenerife North in the national market, in addition to Weeze-Dusseldorf, Nuremberg, Frankfurt Hahn and Vienna in the international market. This withdrawal of operations at Spanish regional airports is no surprise. Ryanair focuses on its strategy reduce your operations in those airports that it considers “non-competitive” due to their airport taxes. The airline has eliminated 1.2 million seats in three consecutive cuts in the country’s regional airports, redistributing that capacity to markets such as Albania, Italy, Morocco, Slovakia and Sweden. The closure of bases in other Spanish airports indirectly affects Seville, according to explained the company to ABC, by eliminating connections that departed from those cities. cpartial compensation. Despite the reduction in destinations, Ryanair will add 17 weekly frequencies on 12 existing routes from Seville. Lisbon will add three new flights, Birmingham, Manchester and Bologna will add two each, while Edinburgh, Brussels, Catania, Bergamo, Milan Malpensa, Pisa, Ibiza and Valencia will add an additional weekly flight. Furthermore, just as share From ABC, the airline will add two routes with Poland this summer: Krakow and Wrocław. The weight of Ryanair in Seville. The Irish airline operates 40% of the air connections at this airport and one of every four planes that leave the terminal is its own. Just like account ABC, in 2025, transported four million passengers from São Paulo, an increase of 1,900% compared to the 200,000 20 years ago, when it began operating in the city. Cover image | Kevin Hackert In Xataka | “It’s inhumane”: a Canadian low-cost airline is already experimenting with ultra-narrow seats for its passengers

science has already achieved it

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The idea of ​​controlling what we dream or using downtime to solve complex problems may sound like science fiction in fairly iconic movies like Inception. However, the “dream engineering“has ceased to be a fantasy since science confirms that not only can we influence the content of our dreams, but doing so can improve our mental health and cognitive ability. The device that whispers. The technique is called Directed Dream Incubation (TDI) and the most recent results, published in 2025, suggest it could be the key to treat chronic nightmares and increase our sense of control over the subconscious. The key is that, unlike spontaneous lucid dreams, this technique uses technology to detect specific phases of sleep and send auditory stimuli. A recent study published in Sleep Advancesput this system to the test with surprising results. And using a device called Dormiothe researchers monitored the sleep phase N1that is, the transition stage between when we are awake and asleep and which lasts approximately between 1 and 7 minutes. How it was done. The experiment was simple but effective, since the participants only had to lie down and take a nap. At that moment, upon detecting the onset of sleep, the device the instruction whispered “Think of a tree,” and then the subject had to be awakened briefly to ask for a verbal report and then he was allowed to sleep. The result was overwhelming: 92% of the participants incorporated the “tree” theme in their dreams. Subjects reported everything from visions of forests and roots to more abstract transformations related to vegetation. Control as therapy. What was truly revolutionary about the 2025 study wasn’t just getting people to dream about trees, but what happened afterward. The researchers here discovered a significant increase in Dream Self-Efficacy (DSE), which is nothing more than an individual’s belief in their own ability to control or influence their dreams. Having this sense of being able to control your sleep is crucial for treating disorders such as trauma-related nightmares that are common in post-traumatic stress disorder. Solving problems. Although the study of Sleep Advances focuses on mental health, other parallel investigations explore the productive aspect. In these experiments, puzzles were used that are difficult for anyone to solve, and that is why while people were sleeping they were induced to dream about this puzzle. The result was that 42% of participants Those who were induced to dream about the puzzle managed to solve it when they woke up, compared to only 17% of those who did not dream about the problem. This suggests that the brain, when given the right stimulus, can continue to process logical and creative information in the background, a phenomenon that technology now allows us to systematize. Sleep therapy. Although the aforementioned study had a preliminary sample of 25 people (almost half of whom suffered from frequent nightmares), the data point to a paradigm shift. Until now, we slept “blind”, but tools like Dormio and protocols like TDI suggest a future where sleep is not a passive period, but an active state that we can program. Whether it is to overcome trauma, as they suggest, or to find the solution to a creative problem, technology is beginning to illuminate the darkness of our dreams. Images | iam_os 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

build ports as if there were no tomorrow

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World geopolitics has been a hornet’s nest since Donald Trump came to the White House for the second time and one of its most strained relations is with China: tariff war It has had its ups and downs and the rest of the world was in the middle. While the United States tightened the screws, China has deployed an alternative based on one hand on its commercial skills and diplomacy and on the other, on its impressive technical and technological muscle. And for example, an entire continent: Africa. The context. China has its Belt and Road Initiativewhich reflects that ports constitute one of the pillars of “Maritime Silk Road of the 21st century“. Ports are not mere infrastructure, but nodes in a global network. In the face of MAGA’s “America First” policy and tariff pressure, Africa is tempted to look for other partners, how it goes deeper the expert in geopolitics and international economics Michael von Liechtenstein. And in fact, they are already doing it: Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, matches its Chinese counterpart confirming that what both countries have is a “comprehensive strategic partnership.” The former president of Senegal, Macky Sall (left office in 2024), also asserted that China is the only partner with the speed necessary to remedy its infrastructure deficit. Why is it important. China has achieved get their hands on one in three commercial ports of the continent, showing that there is life beyond whoever lives in the White House and that the keys to global trade are still in his pocket. With its full or partial participation, China not only moves containers, it controls what comes in, what goes out, how long it takes and what technology is used. What China wins and what Africa wins. African presidents have already said loud and clear that China is the one who can get them out of this infrastructure deficit on the fast track, but it is also no longer a mere builder: it matters in a comprehensive development model with industrial parks, transport infrastructure such as railways and highways and free trade zones. And all this without giving political lessons, thanks to the Beijing Consensus. Africa is not only in a key passage area, it is also the mine of the world and China is thus ensuring that these raw materials reach their factories without the interference of third parties. With zero tariffs and port control, China becomes the perfect partner for anyone, including the United States. China’s port expansion in Africa. Africa Center One in three African ports speaks Chinese. China has already announced that will follow the zero tariff policy for 53 countries in Africa, which will surely come in handy to take advantage of its logistical dominance there. Of the 231 ports across the continent, Chinese state-owned companies actively participate in 78 from 32 countries, either because they have built it directly or, indirectly, have financed it or have participations. Besides, It has 10 fully operating concessions. And they are not just any ports. This figure is significantly higher than anywhere else in the world: Latin America and the Caribbean “only” have 10 ports operated or built by China, according to data from this 2020 study published in Science Direct. China, for its part, has gone from being the partner that lends money to becoming the one that manages the infrastructure, something that was already warned in its five-year plan from 2021 to 2025which includes six corridors, three of which cross Africa: reaching Kenya and Tanzania in East Africa, Egypt and the Suez region, and Tunisia. The key ports. China is conquering the choke points: its strategy is not to build hundreds of small ports, but to control the most critical enclaves on the continent: Djibouti is the strategic node in the Horn of Africa and opens the doors to control of the Red Sea. Mombasa and Lamu in Kenya as a gateway to the east of the continent. Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, the connection to the Zambian Copperbelt and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lagos in Nigeria and its presence on the western coast to advance towards the Atlantic. In Xataka | The Strait of Malacca is not enough: China’s new obsession is to prevent the US from confiscating its ships In Xataka | China has revealed a new naval military strategy: civilian ships that can become missile launchers Cover | 中国新闻社 and Rosy Ko

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