Mobile Tech & Gadgets

now many disappear before reaching their destination

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When we think about the theft of a Lamborghini or a Rolls-Roycethe usual thing is to imagine a physical scene: a forced lock, a broken-in garage or, in the most cinematic version, an interception in the middle of the road. That image is still very present because for years it was the most visible form of this type of crime. However, In the last two years, a different and much less obvious fraud has spread. Some of these cars do not disappear on the street, but at a previous and almost invisible point: the digital process that organizes their transportation from one city to another. Imagine this scene: someone buys a luxury vehicle in one city and organizes its transfer to another through a common service in the sector. The car is loaded onto a closed trailer in front of the owner, the documentation appears correct and the delivery schedule fits what is expected in an operation of this type. Everything responds to a logistical routine that, in theory, should be resolved in a few days without any problems. However, in some cases this outcome never occurs and the vehicle ceases to exist within the planned route. When theft sneaks into logistics To understand where the problem really begins, we have to look at a piece that is little visible outside the sector: the so-called “load boards”. These are digital markets where dealers, manufacturers or owners publish the transfer of a vehicle between two pointsindicating origin, destination, dates and price, so that carriers or intermediaries accept the order. This system has gained weight because it streamlines operations that previously depended on phone calls and personal relationships. For example, the platform Central Dispatch It is one of the best known in the sector in the United States. The gateway to that system does not require forcing anything physical, but rather taking advantage of known weaknesses in the digital environment. One of the most used methods consists of emails phishing that appear to come from the transport platforms themselves. When a broker or carrier enters their credentials on a fake page, the attacker gains real access to their account and can operate as if they were the legitimate company. From there, you can modify contact information and start accepting high-value vehicle orders by taking advantage of that compromised digital identity. Phishing is not the only way in. The complaints also point to another less technical and more structural crack: the possibility of appear legitimate within the US regulatory system itself. To operate in these digital markets it is necessary to have a number from the United States Department of Transportation, known as USDOTwhich identifies commercial transportation companies. However, it is not particularly complex to create shell companies and obtain that identification, which allows you to present yourself to the platforms as an apparently authorized operator. With that access and that appearance of legitimacy, fraud takes its decisive step within the logistics chain itself. This, precisely, is where “double-brokering” comes into play, which consists of claiming a transport order and republishing it from another account so that it can be accepted by a driver completely unaware of the deception. This professional picks up the vehicle believing that he is performing an ordinary service and follows the delivery instructions he receives during the process, without indications that he is part of a fraudulent maneuver. The result is that the car ends up at a destination other than the one intended without, at that moment, there being an obvious sign of theft for whoever sent it. The most disconcerting thing about this scheme is that it does not require violence, not even visible action on the vehicle. Everything happens within a process that, from the outside, continues to appear legitimate: the car is collected correctly, the transfer continues and communications flow through channels that appear normal. By the time the owner detects that something doesn’t fit, the vehicle has already been delivered at a point other than planned and has left the circuit that allowed its route to be traced. This lack of immediate signals is precisely what makes fraud so difficult to anticipate. The last link in the scheme is rapid monetization. Diverted vehicles may end up resold in the United States with new papers or loaded into containers for shipping to overseas buyers. In some cases, when the owner discovers that the car has not arrived at its destination, it has already been sold or has even left the country. The impact is enough to show an underlying tension: the sector’s jump to these online markets has advanced faster than the mechanisms capable of protecting them against this type of fraud. Images | Dhiva Krishna | Dhruv Sharma In Xataka | Entering Discord showing your ID is just the beginning: there is a great battle on the internet against anonymity

After a month of trying it the story is not so simple

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When someone considers buying the Plaud Note Pro An inevitable question arises almost immediately: why isn’t it just an application? The doubt is not capricious. In recent years we have seen how the concept of “AI device” has surrounded itself with very high expectations and discreet results, with examples such as Humane AI Pin or the Rabbit R1 that did not convince. In this context, any new gadget powered by artificial intelligence has to justify its existence very well. The Plaud Note Pro aspires to do this from a clear focus: it does not want to replace the mobile phone, but rather to solve a specific need, that of recording, transcribing and structuring conversations. On paper its proposal is simple, but when we talk about spending almost 200 euros it is advisable to go beyond the technical sheet. That’s why our partner Ana Boria He has used it for a full month, with real meetings and everyday scenarios, to see if specialization is enough of an argument. The real test starts when you press the record button In the new video from Xataka’s YouTube channelAna shares her experience from the first contact. “It’s much smaller than I thought; “I had not seen it in person and it is very small,” he comments as soon as he takes it out of the box. That compact size is not a minor detail, because it is part of its approach: to always be at hand. Hence, one of the first aspects that stands out is its compatibility with MagSafe to attach it to the iPhone. “If you don’t have MagSafe, it comes with an adapter so you can always carry it attached to your phone,” he explains in those first impressions. The real test comes when you start recording. First, in an impromptu meeting. “I thought he was going to make mistakes and, although there is a little thing wrong with the names, he has captured the concept perfectly,” he says after reviewing the transcript. Then you subject it to a more demanding environment, with noise and several interlocutors speaking at the same time. It is in these types of situations where a recorder with AI demonstrates whether it really adds value compared to a simple app. The video also goes into issues that go beyond precision. The Plaud Note Pro promises to detect and transcribe meetings in 112 languagesbut what is relevant is how it behaves in Spanish and what happens with unusual terms or proper nouns. Added to this is the privacy section, a logical concern when it comes to personal or professional conversations. On that point, Ana points out: “It complies with a lot of measures and legislation to protect that information.” There is also a key element that determines the experience: the minute system. “I got a notice that I have a few minutes of recording left,” explains Ana, introducing one of the practical limits of the device. “The Plaud Note Pro costs 189 euros and includes an initial free plan of 300 minutes per month (about 5 hours). If you record many classes or meetings, they run out quickly,” he details. From there, the video analyzes the different plans available and which may be the most reasonable depending on the usage profile. In the end, the conclusion turns on its own nature. “Its greatest strength is simplicity and specialization“, he summarizes in the final section of the video, just before making some comments about the actual battery life. If you want to know all the nuances, strengths and limitations that he has encountered after a month of real use, You have the complete analysis on the Xataka YouTube channel. In Xataka | The Humane AI Pin debacle is a problem for the industry: who will trust an AI clunker again now

In South America there is a bird that camouflages itself as a piece of wood. And a young Uruguayan has insisted on finding him

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In the depths of the South American forests lives a bird that has inspired legends, myths and night terrors and is called the ‘ghost bird’, although his real name is urutaú. At first glance it is just a piece of wood that acts as an extension of the tree on which it perches like a chameleonbut behind this mimicry lies a biology that makes many scientists very curious to see it live even if it is really complicated. An ornithologist. The urutaú is not a bird that one finds by chance, but one must know how to look. Mauricio Silvera, a young Uruguayan amateur ornithologist who has been observing birds since he was five years old, knows this premise well, and according to a recent report from the BBCMauricio has turned observing this elusive species into a true passion. In popular culture, the melancholic song of the urutaú has fueled all kinds of folklore and rural legends in South America. However, for observers like Silvera, the true “magical power” of this species is not in the myths, but in its plumage and its peculiar way of ‘hiding’. A chameleon. It is no wonder, since we are not talking about it going slightly unnoticed, but rather its ability to imitate the bark of trees It is so perfect that sighting records on scientific platforms often require exhaustive photographic confirmation. And it is no wonder, because without this evidence it is difficult to convince the experts that they are not looking at a simple branch and a small irregularity that corresponds to this bird. How he does it. Disappearing in broad daylight is not something easy to achieve, but here science has different answers that go far beyond the simple color of their feathers. The key is in visual crypsis, where research shows that these birds not only have a plumage pattern that blends with the environment, but also make active decisions about where to perch in trees. And it is that a 2017 study on the choice of backgrounds showed that these birds carefully select the place where they rest to maximize the coincidence of patterns with their environment, which increases the survival rate against predators. And if they don’t see it, they can go completely missing. Modify your smell. Beyond the visual, researchers were able to see in a fascinating 2022 study that these birds have the ability to change your scent profiles in different seasons to prevent predators from being able to smell them. Echolocation. Unlike most birds, owls have developed this system, emitting acoustic signals to navigate in the darkness of Venezuelan and South American caves, similar to bats. Furthermore, their role in the ecosystem is vital, since research into the “secret life” of these birds reveals that they are formidable seed dispersers. They spend entire days in the trees regurgitating the seeds of the fruits they consume, acting as true foresters who maintain the ecological connectivity of Neotropical forests. A story of the search. As we see, it is not easy to find this bird and that is why Mauricio Silvera relates that finding it is “an adrenaline rush like in the chest of not knowing what to do: whether to scream, take the photo and tell someone.” Even this biology student makes a very comical simile when he sees that it is “almost like looking for Pokémon and seeing how many little birds you find and if you find the rarest one.” Your adventure always begins with a location or a photo that indicates that the bird may be present in a specific place. But due to its great ability to hide, it means that your trips do not always end with a photograph of this bird, much to your misfortune. Images | Wikipedia In Xataka | “Emergency room mentality”: the Dutch philosopher convinced that saving snails is saving ourselves

why is it still visible today

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From space, everything looks different. Without going any further, the barrage of precipitation that ha cracked face of the peninsula. Or that one of the human structures that are best seen from space They are the greenhouses of Almería. From space the mountain ranges are striking, but in Africa a dark line that cuts the terrain for hundreds of kilometers draws attention and is not a road. Its existence dates back 2.5 billion years, more than half of Earth’s history. And the reasons why it is still visible today also explain why it will still be there in so many millions more: it is the Great Dam of Zimbabwe. First of all, a couple of nuances about its name: it is large and crosses Zimbabwe but it is not a dam: it is the longest known continuous rock intrusion on the planet, according to the Zimbabwe Geological Survey. Or rather, a lopolito. It is 550 kilometers long, between 3 and 13 km wide and protrudes up to 450 meters above the plateaus of the Zimbabwe Craton. Throughout history, NASA has photographed this geological landmark on several occasions on various missions, mainly through its Earth observation satellites and also by astronauts. Its image is so characteristic that it works as a reference point from space. Live Science collects which in 1983 was immortalized by astronauts aboard the space shuttle Challenger, collecting only the southern part of the structure. In 2000, a 62.2 x 39.2 kilometer section of the Great Dam was captured by the Advanced Space Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) satellite, aboard NASA’s Terra satellite: NASA/GSFC/MITI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and US/Japan ASTER Science Team Zimbabwe’s Great Dam is much more than a geological landmark If there is an iconic and detailed photograph from space, it is it that of September 30, 2010. It was taken by an astronaut on the Expedition 25 crew of the International Space Station with a Nikon D2Xs camera and a 180mm lens. POT 2.5 billion years ago, molten rock from the Earth’s mantle found cracks in the crust to climb between existing rock layers. As it cooled, it solidified into a mass of truly hard rock: the Great Dam of Zimbabwe. The slowness of this process and the stability of the craton explain why it has survived erosion practically intact for millions of years. The Great Dam is like a time capsule: That this enormous formation has survived undeterred allows the scientific community to study what the interior of the Earth was like at that time, something that is not possible in most of the planet. And of course, it makes it still visible from space. As the magma rose and cooled, the minerals separated and concentrated in layers like sediments, leaving large accumulations of platinum, chromite, nickel, vanadium and gold. Because the Great Dam of Zimbabwe also has great strategic and economic importance, as it houses the world’s third largest reserve of platinum and contains other critical minerals for the technology industry. In Xataka | This is the impressive interactive map to see the Earth in 4K live from space and monitor satellites In Xataka | The brutal floods facing Portugal and western Spain, seen from space Cover | POT

In 1985 the most valuable company in the world had 400,000 employees. In 2026 the most valuable company in the world will have 40,000 employees

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36,000 employees. Is the approximate number of the template of what, today, is the most valuable company in the world: NVIDIA. It may seem like a lot of employees, but the figure takes on another dimension when we compare it to what was the most valuable company in the world, IBM, which once had a whopping 400,000 employees on its payroll in 1985. More inhabitants than many cities The IBM of the 80s needed a veritable army of employees to function. It reached its peak in 1985, with a total of 405,000 employees hired all over the world, a figure that exceeds the population of cities such as Alicante, Bilbao or Córdoba. Currently, large technology companies have enormous staff, but all of them are very far from what IBM was (except for Amazon which due to its global retail business, has a much larger staff). According to bullfincher datathis is the number of employees of the big tech: Alphabet (Google): 190,000 Microsoft: 228,000 Apple: 166,000 Goal: 78,000 NVIDIA: 36,000 The case of NVIDIA draws attention, which with only 36,000 employees stands out as the most valuable company of the moment. Right now its market capitalization is 4 trillion dollarsalthough reached 5 billion at the end of last year. And what about the money? But let’s get to the important thing: How much money did IBM generate with that workforce? They count in The Chip Letter that, in 1985, IBM brought in 50,000 million dollars, which adjusted for inflation it would be about 150 billion dollars. Let’s see how it looks compared to what big technology companies entered in 2025: Alphabet: 402.8 billion Microsoft: 281.7 billion Apple: 416,000 million Goal: 200,000 million NVIDIA: 130 billion (2024) IBM was a true giant in its time, but even adjusting for inflation, its income pales compared to what big technology companies earn today. The only exception is NVIDIA, which has not yet reported its results for 2025, so the figure is that of 2024. Still, if we compare the volume of employees, NVIDIA makes each employee much more profitable. We talk about $3.61 million per employee compared to $370,000 per employee in the case of IBM, almost ten times more profitable. Productivity has skyrocketed How have companies managed to maximize profitability per employee? The key is in digitalization and how it has boosted productivity. Already in 2013 there was talk that technology had made Productivity will increase by 480% since the 70s. If we go to the specific case of IBM and NVIDIA, the first was mainly dedicated to the manufacture of mainframe computers or mainframesa process that in itself was much more laborious, at a time when manufacturing more meant having more employees on production lines. NVIDIA is a company fablessmeaning that those who manufacture their GPUs are other companies like TSMC, and they also do it with much faster and more efficient automated processes. This leaves its 36,000 employees “free” to focus on chip design and architecture, allowing them to scale faster and with much less labor. However, there is something in which no technology company manages to surpass what IBM once was: its degree of transversal dominance. He kept around the 70% market share mainframes, But it was also a leader in minicomputers, microcomputers and the software that accompanied them, from databases to compilers. Image | Apple (edited with Gemini) In Xataka | Company CEOs say AI is saving them a day of work a week. Employees say otherwise

We thought it took us a long time to learn to cook. Until some 780,000-year-old carp teeth rewrote history

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If we think about the technology that has most transformed humanity, it is easy for the wheel, the steam engine or the microchip to come to mind in a more current way. However, there is a much older and more fundamental “technology” that literally changed our anatomy: the kitchen. The evolution. For decades, paleoanthropologists have debated At what exact moment did our ancestors stop consuming raw foods to start processing them through the control of fire. The most recent evidence not only rewrites our chronology, but confirms that mastering cooking was the true driving force of human evolution. How do you know? Date something as precise as the beginning of cooking, but the reality is that Until recently, indisputable evidence of the continued use of fire for cooking They were around 600,000 years old. However, a great finding published in the prestigious magazine Nature in 2022 set back this evolutionary clock. In this case it was at the site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqovin Israel, remains of large carp teeth were found. With these samples and through advanced techniques such as X-ray diffraction, the researchers demonstrated that these remains had been exposed to controlled and relatively low temperatures, being less than 500 °C. The first date. With this evidence it seemed quite clear that it was not an accidental fire, but rather that it was dated 780,000 years ago these animals began to be cooked. This is consistent with the fact that Acheulean hunter-gatherers were already exploiting aquatic habitats, selecting nutrient-rich fish and cooking them in what archaeologists call “ghost hearths,” which were structured fire zones. Another hypothesis. Although direct evidence pointed us back to 780,000 years ago, biological clues suggest that the culinary revolution began much earlier. This is what primatologist Richard Wrangham pointed out, in his book Catching Fire and in subsequent studies published in Current Anthropology, proposing that systematic cooking emerged with Homo erectus approximately 1.9 million years ago. Your arguments. To be able to give this date, this expert focuses mainly on energy efficiency, since he points out that cooking predigests food, breaking down fibers and starches. This allows you to obtain many more calories with minimal effort. But the most relevant thing is that by facilitating digestion, the Homo erectus It no longer needed a massive intestinal tract to process hard, raw vegetables. And here size matters, since intestinal tissue and brain tissue are energetically very expensive, and so, by shrinking the intestine, the excess energy could be redirected to the growth of a much larger and more complex brain. But this softer diet also explains why the molars of the Homo erectus They shrank and their jaws became less prominent. Beyond nutrition. The implementation of cooking not only brought anatomical benefits, but studies indicate that in the case of the first hominids, this was essential for roasting raw meat and killing the bacteria that were inside. But in addition, fire control and the ability to process food were key tools that facilitated human migration. In reassessments of classic sites, such as the Zhoukoudian caves in China, they confirm that the Homo erectus pekinensis used controlled fire to cook deer meat in specific stratademonstrating that this practice was essential for adapting to colder climates outside of Africa. Images | Michael Lock

UAE and Saudi Arabia seek to be the new strength of AI

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Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have been engaged in a particular war: that of burning money. While in other parts of the world that means bringing AI into the conversationin this battle we are talking about two countries that compete to see who builds the tallest skyscraper… wave most ostentatiously unnecessary megaconstruction. Now they have engaged in another fight: that of hyperconnecting. And, curiously, they share the goal of being the hub between East and West in the age of artificial intelligence. SilkLink. It’s funny how things work. If one of the countries announced a skyscraper, the other unveiled a larger one. Both countries have the money for punishment and are focusing efforts on improving their digital infrastructure. Saudi Arabia made its move first by revealing the project SilkLink next to Syria. This is a 4,500-kilometer-long fiber optic network worth about $1 billion that will aim to position Syria as the ideal route for data to cross between Asia and Europe. The name is a nod to the Silk Road, that historic ‘silk road’ that China is reviving with another objective: dominate the world market. WorldLink. But of course, if Saudi Arabia opted for the homage name with SilkLink, the Arab Emirates directly pursues its ambition with its project. Something more humble in costs, “only” 700 million dollars, but ambitious in name: WorldLink. Like its neighbors’ project, it is a fiber cable that will have two phases: a submarine one from the United Arab Emirates to the Iraqi peninsula of Al-Faw, and then another land section to Iraq. The money comes from private entities and it is estimated that it will take about four or five years to complete. Once done, it will be one of the arguments for the UAE to become one of the most important centers of AI and digital infrastructure in the Middle East. The same thing that Saudi Arabia is looking for, wow. An unexpected actor. These cables also share something: they will alleviate the load that already built cables support because, in this excessive rise of AI and data centerscomputing power is as important as the speed at which everything is transmitted. And something curious is that Iraq, with these facilities, is positioning itself as a stable corridor after decades of conflict. If until then the most famous road was the ‘highway of death‘, they are now building one to connect Al-Faw with Türkiye. In a development plan of more than 17 billion dollars are also other efforts to improve connections, such as the Al Faw port which will allow the country to increase its loading and unloading capacity in the Persian Gulf. Middle East 🤝🏼 AI. The project website itself emphasizes the benefits that WorldLink they will have as much for Iraq as for the region and for the world. The improvement in regional integration stands out, but above all being a tool to attract investment. What investment? The one you are imagining: OTT platforms, hyperscalers and… data centers. If a region has space and energy to unleash plans to build gigantic data centers (apart from China, of course) is the Middle East region. It is a goal that is not new and it has already been spoken of billion-dollar investments by companies like NVIDIA or AMD, and this commitment to new transmission cables is one more step to build that future. Middle East 🤝🏼 all. But it is no longer just artificial intelligence: it is anything. WorldLink’s ambition is to be the catalyst for other segments such as cloud servicesthe digital economy and entertainment. In fact, like almost everything in the technology sector, there is no stitches here and an improvement in communications in this regard is in line with what Emirates is following. What are we referring to? For example, the billion-dollar purchases they are making recently to position itself as a major player in video games. First it was Electronic Arts for 50,000 million, now they negotiate by the creators of one of the most successful MOBAs for mobile phones for another 7,000 million. We will see if they achieve their goal, but as we said a few lines ago, in the competition to burn money, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have no competition. And on the cables, the two shake hands pointing that all the investment made in this sense will be beneficial for both. Images | Maritime, Francesco Bini In Xataka | 99% of the internet travels through submarine cables. Now there is a much more ambitious plan underway: linking the electrical grid

What exactly happens to your body if you continue drinking after age 65?

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The alcohol is quite normalized in our society as it is for sale to the public as long as you are of legal age, and almost always because we associate it at leisure. But the truth is that we are talking about a drug that has important harmful effects on our body, that at 30 years old may not be noticed because we have a strong body that processes it relatively easily. But when we reach the barrier of 65-70 years this changes completely. An older organism. What at 30 years old can be easily counteracted with healthy organs, cannot be achieved with organs that are more ‘worn out’ with the passage of time. This means that science suggests that, from a certain age onwards, it is advisable to stop drinking alcohol, and scientific evidence behind It never stops giving us reasons to do so if we want to have a better old age and with fewer diseases. A structural change. The first and most critical factor that alters our relationship with alcohol as we age is drastic change in body composition. As we age over 65, the body experiences a progressive loss of lean muscle mass and, crucially, a reduction in total body water. This is vital, because alcohol is a substance that is diluted in water, and that is why, as there is less water in the body to dilute it, the same amount of alcohol ingested by a 65-year-old person will result in a significantly higher concentration than in a younger person of the same weight and gender. We go slower. Added to this is the slowing down of liver metabolism, since the aging liver produces Less of the key enzymes responsible for breaking down ethanolwhich means that alcohol remains in the bloodstream longer, prolonging its toxic effect. The direct result is drunkenness that comes much sooner with less alcohol, drastically increasing the risk of loss of balance, falls and bone fractures. Something that at that age is almost a sentence for the muscle loss that it entails. Neurotoxicity. If we start talking now about the direct effects that alcohol has on the different organs of our body, the first obligatory stop is the brainwhere one of the most severe impacts of continued consumption occurs. Here alcohol acts as a neurotoxin that accelerates neuronal lossa process that already occurs naturally due to aging, but that ethanol multiplies. Prestigious neurologists such as Richard Restak emphasize that neuronal damage after the age of 65 is irreversible, recommending total abstinence here. This joins reviews carried out in Spain that demonstrate that alcohol accelerates cognitive deterioration, the impact being even more serious with distilled beverages compared to fermented ones. In memory. But the loss of brain matter, which can lead to severe dementia, is also accompanied by loss of memory and control of what we do. Cohort studies, such as the NEDICES projecthave linked high alcohol consumption in people over 65 years of age with notably lower neuropsychological scores. Furthermore, the loss of motor coordination explains why 60% of serious falls in the elderly they are related to alcohol consumption. Multi-organ damage. Continued consumption in the elderly is not limited to one organ, but causes cascading systemic failure aggravated by oxidative stress, which is the great enemy of aging. A recent cross-sectional study made in Extremadura With more than 2,800 participants, it was demonstrated that in men over 65 years of age, the prevalence of risky consumption reaches an alarming 30%, being strongly associated with increased cholesterol, hypertension and cardiovascular risk such as a heart attack. The heart. Undoubtedly, you suffer the onslaught of alcohol-induced hypertension and an increased risk of arrhythmias, while blood vessels lose their elasticity. This makes it much easier to have high voltage spikes that lead to a stroke, for example. In the liver. Without a doubt, one of the most affected organs, being the ‘factory’ that is in charge of processing all the alcohol that enters the body. Chronic toxicity here not only increases the risk of cirrhosis, but, due to poor metabolism, prolonged exposure to toxic metabolites exponentially increases the risk of developing cancer, especially liver, breast and colorectal. Something that responds to the greater damage suffered by DNA in the elderly who continue to drink with some frequency. In the intestine. Perhaps one of the most recent notes we have is the erosion caused by alcohol in the intestinal mucosaand therefore to the microbiota found here. Little by little we are seeing that the microbiota is more important than we think, and it has been shown that its loss allows endotoxins to pass into the bloodstream, favoring chronic inflammation of different parts of the body. Something that is linked to many other effects. Without going any further, this inflammation aggravates the osteoporosis that is already marked at this age, damages the pancreas and causes an accelerated shortening of cellular telomeres, which translates into premature biological aging and a fragile immune system incapable of fighting respiratory infections effectively. The silent trap. A critical factor that is often overlooked is the polypharmacysince the vast majority of people over the age of 65 take several prescription medications daily. It is not uncommon to see a person with a pill for stress, diabetes, pain, to reduce fluid retention… The problem is that combining some of these pills, such as anti-inflammatories such as ibuprofen, increases the risk of suffering severe digestive bleeding. Images | Vlad Sargu In Xataka | The work ethic has been selling for years that getting up at 05:00 AM is good. Science is clear that absolutely

making mistakes as an antidote to the cult of productivity

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They say we live in a secular country, but whoever says that has not encountered the productivity gurus or the stationery YouTubers. bullet journal, intermittent fasting, hobonichi roof, cold showers at five in the morning“atomic habits“, journaling until you end up with blisters on your hands… let’s be clear: productivity and growth aspire to function as civil religions. Therefore, perhaps it is time to look for an old-fashioned way out, one inspired by Saint Augustine. The cult of productivity I know that talking about ‘civil religion’ may seem exaggerated, but the truth is that a very specific aspirational narrative has been normalized: one based on self-optimization. And it’s not all those things that I described above (getting up early, diet, metrics, discipline, etc…), it’s that not achieving it has become a ‘moral failure’. If you make a mistake, if you don’t arrive, if you don’t achieve it… it’s because you didn’t make the effort, you didn’t organize yourself, you’re not good enough. An example much discussed in recent days are all those readers who, given the evidence that they are not going to reach their “reading challenge” of the year, decide to discard books that they would like to read and prioritize short books in order to reach the numbers that had been marked. Error has become something we cannot afford. But Augustine did not agree. Louis Comfort Tiffany But, of course, St. Augustine had its moments. One of the most brilliant people of the late Roman Empire, Augustine of Hippo was a ‘pearl‘ in his youth and early maturity. But it quickly became one of Christianity’s sharpest swords. That, translated, means that he did not agree with many. He has not only written some of the greatest works of universal literaturebut he worked to destroy (theologically, philosophically and literally) Manichaeans, Donatists and Pelagians. That war changed Western thinking, but I don’t think anyone imagined it would be essential to defending ourselves from the productivity gurus. Saint Augustine vs productivity gurus “If I’m wrong, I exist” (“If I fail, add“), wrote the saint of Hippo in book That is, the idea that a mistake is not only a stigma: it is a piece of information, a learning, a reminder that we are human, but we are on the way. We could say that error is also productive (and there are people who defend it); but that’s not the point. The point is that, against what Byung-Chul calls the “performance society” (compared to the self-demand that is sold as freedom, but leads to self-exploitation), compared to the spiritual turn of your trusted technobro, there is an even deeper dimension: the right to be and be without the chains that bind us to the productive system. In a world that asks for “performance” and “utility” to have personal value, Augustine exposes that ancient Christian tradition that says that the ontological value of the person does not depend on anything; that even in the worst of failure, we are worth exactly the same. Because, pay attention to the fact, when Agustín talks about existing he is not just talking about existing. It talks about doing it, about knowing that you exist and about loving those two realities as a non-productivist theory of self. Image | Xataka In Xataka | The Catholic Church changed the psychology of Europe. Unintentionally, it sparked an era of technological innovation

The cell phone on the nightstand is not “frying” your brain, but science is beginning to understand why it prevents you from resting

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It is practically a ritual today: connect your phone to the charger, set the alarm and leave it on the nightstand just 30 centimeters from the pillow to sleep. According to the data, for 95% of adultssleeping with your phone within reach is a logistical necessity; For a growing stream of longevity experts, It’s a biological miscalculation. because we rest less. To do this, we have analyzed the bibliography to know exactly the effect of having your cell phone next to you. The culprit confirmed. Before entering the swampy terrain of the possible problems that radiation can generate when it is around us, we must point out the “elephant in the room.” The most solid evidence we have today does not blame antennas for having a bad sleep, but to the screens and what we do with them. To give us an idea, a meta-analysis over 36,000 participants concluded that excessive use of smartphone increases the risk of having poor quality sleep by 228%. The double responsible. The first is the suppression of melatonin, since the blue light emitted by the LED panels of mobile phones tricks our brain making him believe that it is still day. This delays the release of melatonin and fragments the architecture of sleep. But not only the blue light is information, since responding to a WhatsApp or doing doomscrolling on TikTok before bed keeps the brain alert. A study of medical students suggested that nighttime cell phone use corresponded to poorer sleep. The radiation debate. It has always been a mantra for many: having your cell phone nearby is having a large source of radiation that causes many health problems. In this case, organizations such as the WHO or ARPANSA have traditionally maintained that evidence of damage from low-level electromagnetic fields is “insufficient.” However, it does not mean that it is non-existent. The most recent studies They are beginning to see the non-thermal effects that mobile phones have. One of the most interesting was done with baby monitors that have a frequency of 2.45 GHz, similar to Bluetooth or Wifi, to simulate environmental exposure. The result was that the exposed group, compared to the placebo, showed a worse subjective quality of sleep and alterations in heart rate variability, suggesting that sensitive people do notice the invisible “presence” of the electronic device nearby. Brain wave modulation. Other research on 5G signals found that exposure to 3.6 GHz waves affected sleep spindles during N2 phasethat is, light sleep that accounts for 50% of the total rest time. The curious thing about this study is that the effect depended on genetics: only carriers of certain variants of the CACNA1C gene showed alterations in the electroencephalogram. This qualifies the warnings of some experts, since radiation may not affect us all equally, but for a genetically predisposed subgroup, sleeping next to a continuous emission source could be fragmenting their N2 phase, crucial for memory consolidation. The habit factor. It is often cited Sinha’s studio to demonize radiation, but what this study really measured were habits in a sample of 566 participants. In this case, it was seen that those people with high mobile phone use took longer to fall asleep, their sleep was less efficient, and 22.6% reported worse quality of sleep. In this way, the conclusion was not that the waves prevented them from sleeping, but that the habit of having their cell phone nearby inevitably leads to using. If it’s on the table, you look at it. If you look at it, you become active. It is a behavioral rather than a radiological vicious circle. Hygiene protocol. The question in this case is inevitable: should we wrap the room in aluminum foil? It’s not necessary. In this case, physics works in our favor thanks to the inverse square law: the intensity of the radiation falls drastically with distance. That is why the most important thing is to move the device at least one meter away from the bed, since at this distance the exposure falls to negligible basal levels, making Sleeping with your cell phone under your pillow is the worst possible decision. If we want to go a little further, we can put it in airplane mode, although the best advice, as the Spanish Society of Neurology points out, is to have a sacred hour, where the recommendation is to leave the screens an hour before going to sleep. Images | Nubelson Fernandes In Xataka | We thought insomnia was just not being able to sleep. Now we know that there are five different disorders

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