age

Walking 20 minutes a day after age 55 is very good. The secret of healthy maturity is to do it much earlier

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An increasingly repeated idea is that, to have a quality retirementyou have to keep moving throughout maturity and with adequate physical activity. The problem is that many times people wait until they are 55 years old to start taking care of themselves and in many cases because they already have a metabolic disease. And this should make us aware that the sooner we start taking care of ourselves, the better. Walk It has been crowned as the star exercise for older adults, and the scientific evidence that supports it is overwhelming. A study from the year 2023 points out that walking 30 minutes a day for 5 days a week reduces the risk of age-related diseases, although it is especially emphasized that it must be done at a high speed and that requires some effort for the body and not as a simple walk. If this is done, we will be significantly reducing the risk of suffering from cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes, but also protects against dementia. And if that were not enough, a review conducted this year with 180,000 participants demonstrated an 18% to 30% reduction in mortality from all causes with moderate levels of physical activity. In figures. It’s not that Olympic records need to be broken, but simply taking 5,694 steps a day is associated with a 13% lower risk of mortality from all causes. And as we have said before, if it is done a speed high, a greater benefit is achieved. When to start. If the benefits in middle age are so incredible, why does science demand that we start much earlier? The answer lies in sarcopenia, which is the process of loss of muscle mass that we face when we begin to age without doing any type of strength exercise. And that is why the deadline of 30 years is set to begin to remedy it. Because? From this age onwards, it has been seen that between 3% and 5% of muscle mass is lost per decade. according to the NIHand other studies suggest that this figure can be between 3% and 8% per decade after age 30. AND from 60 years old the rate of decline becomes even greater. With all this information, it is estimated that right now between 10% and 20% of older adults suffer from sarcopenia, and lack of exercise is the main factor that worsens this progressive muscle loss. The recipe. The WHO here is very clear in its guidelines and, curiously, it does not make reductions upon reaching retirement, so it does not understand a specific age from which you must exercise no matter what, but rather it points out that you should always do it. That is why their recommendations are exactly the same for adults from 18 to 64 years old as for those over 65 years old: relativize. Between 150 and 300 minutes a week of moderate aerobic activity (such as walking), or between 75 and 150 minutes of vigorous intensity. Furthermore, the WHO asks to incorporate muscle group strengthening exercises at least two days a week for all adults. In the specific case of adults over 65 years of age, the only difference is that activities that improve balance must be added to the general recommendations three or more days per week to avoid fatal falls. Images | Emma Simpson In Xataka | There’s a reason why working out for an hour a day at the gym doesn’t give you results. And that reason is evolution In Trends | The trainers agree: “From the age of 55, you should walk every day for at least 20 minutes, preferring stairs, doing gentle stretches and working on balance.”

They have measured the brain age of people who usually meditate. The result is that he looks six years younger

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The age reflected on our identity card does not always coincide with the real age of our organs. In the field of neuroscience, the “brain age” has become a fascinating biomarker to understand how our nervous system ages and what factors can protect it. And now meditation seems to have a fundamental role in delaying this clock at least during our rest hours. A new study published in the magazine Mindfulness has found that people who practice meditation At an advanced level they have a “brain age” during sleep that is almost six years lower than their chronological age. A striking fact that opens doors in the study of neuroplasticity and the role that this habit can have in the lives of many people. Although logically we must move away from the idea of ​​suffering a miraculous “rejuvenation” How it has been seen. To understand the finding, we must first understand how this “brain age” is measured, and here the researchers did not use MRIs to see the size of the brain, but instead analyzed the electrical activity through electroencephalograms (EEG) during sleep. Its evolution. Something that is known is that, as we age, the brain waves we produce when sleeping change in predictable ways. Under this pretext, algorithms have been used to calculate a “brain age index” based on these electrical patterns. With these data, if the brain produces waves typical of someone of a similar age, the index is similar to zero, but if waves are produced from someone older, the index is positive. The method. The research team evaluated 34 people who meditate at an advanced level, belonging to the discipline Inner Engineering with an average age of 38 yearsand compared their sleep records with those of several control groups who did not meditate. The result here was that people who usually meditate showed an index that corresponded to people six years younger. That is, their brains, electrically speaking and while sleeping, behaved like those of people almost six years younger, while the control groups showed values ​​close to zero or slightly positive. One more biomarker. The findings fit like one more piece in a scientific puzzle that has been years in the making. Previous research already pointed to global changes in the EEG spectrum and greater neuroplasticity, and it was even seen that regular meditation caused an increase in brain gray matter and a possible neuroprotective effect. However, from a clinical standpoint, it is critical not to confuse an EEG marker with literal rejuvenation. The fact that the brain shows younger electrical patterns at night is an excellent biological indicator of brain health, but this study does not clinically prove that meditation is a proven tool for reversing cognitive decline. You have to be cautious. In this case it cannot be categorically stated that meditating rejuvenates the brain because there may be other factors that have not been measured. We must also keep in mind that we are dealing with a study on only 34 people, so the sample should be increased with the aim of extrapolating it to the entire population. Images | Drazen Zigic in Magnific In Xataka | The best 18 meditation, relaxation and mindfulness applications to have better mental health

We have spent years looking for how to stop muscle fragility as we age. The answer was hidden in garlic

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Aging brings with it a series of inevitable tolls, and one of the most limiting is loss of muscle mass and strengthwhich is a problem known as sarcopenia. This can cause a person to not be able to move comfortably around their home, causing them to have significant limitations in their daily lives. But now we have seen that there is a compound in garlic that can help us delay this agingalthough without being magical. A new study. Now, a promising new study published in the prestigious magazine Cell Metabolism has identified a specific compound derived from garlic that improves age-related muscle function. But we must keep in mind that we are not talking about the raw garlic that we add to the pan and which for many has a horrible taste, but rather about a very particular metabolite present in the aged garlic extract. The protagonist. This study focuses specifically on S-1-propenyl-L-cysteine ​​(S1PC), which is one of the metabolites that is generated during the aging process of garlic. This is where we can find a little help to delay aging. But it is essential to avoid the promises of “anti-aging elixir”, since eating raw garlic daily will not provide you with the necessary doses of this compound to replicate the results. Furthermore, it must be taken into account that it is not a “cure against old age”, but rather a solid therapeutic target to combat muscle fragility and sarcopenia. A surprising connection. The most fascinating thing about the study is not only what S1PC does, but how it does it, since when ingested it directly activates an enzyme called LKB1 that encourages adipose tissue to secrete a key protein called eNAMPT into the bloodstream. This protein is essential, since when it reaches the brain it acts on the regulatory centers of systemic metabolism and causes nervous and chemical signals to be sent from the brain that drastically improve the function of skeletal muscle tissue. Just what we want to improve in aging. Your results. To verify that this mechanism really works, the researchers carried out tests in both animal models and humans. Here, aged mice, after being administered the metabolite S1PC, improved their muscle strength and reduced markers of frailty related to aging. In the case of humans, the team conducted a human clinical trial using aged garlic extract, and the results confirmed that consumption of this compound raises the levels of eNAMPT that we have discussed before. But the most interesting thing is that the effect is greater in those people with enough body fat, which makes sense, since this protein is released by the adipose tissue itself. Images | wirestock at Magnific In Xataka | It is possible to convince an AI that shoving garlic up your ass is a good idea. You just need the right words

The Golden Age of television is over. Specifically, when Netflix assumed it was the second screen in your preferences

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There’s a note that Netflix executives have been writing on the scripts they receive for years: “this is not enough second screen“. That is to say, it is not “second screen” enough, that the scene forces the viewer to pay attention. Apparently, paying attention to the series is now a problem. And although This has been talked about for months.it is now that it is being named. The problem is cataloged. And above all, it raises a vital question: is television ceasing to be creativity and innovation and becoming, once again, background noise? Origins. One of the triggers for this conversation was an article published in December 2024 in the literary magazine ‘n+1’. Its author collected the testimonies of several scriptwriters who had worked for Netflix: A common note from the platform’s executives was to ask the characters to announce out loud what they were doing, so that viewers who had the series playing in the background could follow the thread without having to look at the screen. The article went viral a year or so ago, and gave a name to something that many suspected: Netflix not only tolerated its users being distracted from what was seen on the screen, but also designed its content to encourage that distraction. Second screen. If we look at previous studies on Netflix’s footprint in fictional narrative, we can name the phenomenon: researcher Daphne Rena Idiz had published a study called ‘Local Production for Global Platforms: How Netflix Shapes European Production Cultures’, in which it described how Netflix internally labeled certain series as “second-screen shows” and developed them accordingly. One of their interviewees, for example, explained that the platform had even asked them that, if a character was sad, they expressly said so while crying and violins playing in the background. The logic. Another producer interviewed by Idiz related that Netflix had literally told them: “what you have to know about your audience is that they will watch the series while doing something else and talking to their friends, so you have to show and tell, you have to say a lot more than you would normally say.” And all this is pure commercial logic: what matters is not that the user pays attention to the screen (that’s how traditional advertising worked), but that they do not cancel their subscription. The content should not be boring, but it should not require effort either. When a study in January 2025 made it clear that 91% of Americans looked at their cell phones from time to time while watching a series, it is clear that Netflix is ​​not going against the current. Whether it is part of the problem or its true germ, it is obvious that Netflix is ​​fully riding this wave. More precedents. None of this is new: already during the actors’ strike of 2023, the first steps in this direction began to be detected. Actress and director Justine Bateman declared in a podcast who had spoken with showrunners that they received notes from the platforms telling them that their content “was not sufficiently second screen“, and proposed a term for that: “visual muzak“, television as elevator music. Even earlier, in November 2020, writer Kyle Chayka had coined the concept of “ambient TV“ to describe a sliver of Netflix’s catalog (‘Emily in Paris’ was its prime example) that it defined as content that “you don’t need to follow closely to enjoy, but that is seductive enough to capture your attention if you decide to watch it for a moment.” The proportions. From Serialized They explained that the data collected through Big Data had even determined which was the perfect series, and that it fits with these content decisions that we have seen: the perfect genre is a procedural (doctors, firefighters, detectives, lawyers), it must include a twist or hook visual every eight minutes, a proportion of 70% plot and 30% character development, and the aforementioned explanatory dialogues so as not to get lost. On the contrary. There are those who deny all these visions of work at Netflix which, let’s not forget, do not come from official sources. In this articlethree scriptwriters who had written for the platform claimed to have not received instructions of that type. Screenwriter Danny Brocklehurst, known for his adaptations of Harlan Coben, stated that no one had pressured him to simplify his work or adapt it for distracted viewers. Idiz herself warned in her study that it is advisable not to generalize, since Netflix operates in more than 190 countries with very different production teams and cultures. Something old, something new. The soap operas, the sitcoms of the eighties, the reality shows They have been designed for decades with the partially distracted viewer in mind. It is not new to create content that works in the background, but it is striking to do so when the platforms of streaming Current ones, preceded by the cable era where brands like HBO were born, are sold to us as quality alternatives to conventional television. The Golden Age of Television did not refer to ‘The Price is Right’, but if ‘The Sopranos’ were produced now, it would need a spin every eight minutes. In Xataka | In 2023, watching Netflix without ads cost 7.99 euros/month. Today its cheapest plan with ads costs 8.99 euros/month

2,500 years ago Athens suffered an epidemic that marked the end of its golden age. Science is determined to know what caused it

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“Words are insufficient when trying to describe this disease. As for his suffering, it seemed almost beyond what is humanly bearable.” Although the news about the hantavirus They make it sound even scarier, that commentIn reality, it is more than 2,000 years old. The chronicler Thucydides wrote it in his ‘History of the Peloponnesian War’ to give an idea of ​​the terrible plague that devastated Athens around 430 BC, an ailment that he himself suffered and took the lives of some 75,000 people. For centuries that epidemic has been remembered as the ‘plague of Athens’although we don’t actually know exactly what caused it. Now a group of Greek researchers have shed some more light on that dark episode. Epidemic detectives. In a hyperconnected world, in which people are capable of traveling thousands of kilometers in a few hours and it comes with blocking a remote strait of the Middle East to put the world economy in check, the specter of pandemics seems more present, but the truth is that humanity takes centuries dealing with him. Before the COVID pandemic, we had, for example, the 1918 flu or the disastrous Black Deathwhich devastated Europe between 1346 and 1353 and (by some estimates) reached 60% case fatality rates in some regions. Long before any of them, in the times of Classical Greece, another equally devastating epidemic was recorded: the plague of Athens. Thanks to authors like Thucydideswho in addition to being a chronicler suffered it himself, today we can learn in detail how that outbreak developed and experienced, which left tens of thousands of dead. The episode was important not only because of its death toll: between 75,000 and 100,000 in the four years that elapsed from 430 to 426 BC One of the deceased was Periclesa historical leader of Athens. In fact, experts usually agree that the plague precipitated the decline of the Athenian Golden Age and its death toll facilitated its final defeat in the war against Sparta. The great unknown. Despite this historical value, the Athenian plague remains shrouded in unknowns. We know when it developed, we know where it developed and there is even evidence suggesting that the initial outbreak occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, spread to Egypt and Libya and then passed to Athens via Piraeus. What is not clear is what exactly caused the plague and why it was so disastrous. And Thucydides was in charge of describing all its symptoms. Now a team from the University of Athens (NKUA) have wanted to clear up this mystery by analyzing the symptoms described by the chronicler and comparing it with that of known ailments. The result they have published it in the magazine AMHA. A pulse on history. If it is difficult to track a viral outbreak in 2026, the task becomes daunting when we are talking about one of the first known epidemics in human history. To face such a challenge, Dr. Dimosthenis Papadimitrakis and his colleagues had an idea: they looked at the symptoms described by Thucydides and other sources, They selected 17 diseases known that more or less fit that symptomatology and created a “metric system” with different scores to determine which of them best fit the epidemic that hit Athens 2,400 years ago. “The most terrible thing, despair”. Whether due to his zeal as a chronicler or because he himself suffered from the disease, Thucydides detailed the symptoms suffered by those who contracted the Athenian plague: migraines, high fever, redness and inflammation of the eyes, bad breath, sneezing, cough and profound gastrointestinal discomfort, such as nausea, vomiting, spasms and painful diarrhea. Over time, rashes, pustules and ulcers appeared on the patient’s skin, especially in the abdomen area. Those who could not stand the disease died after seven or nine days, after experiencing intense burning that led them to take off their clothes or even immerse themselves in cold water. “Gangrene of the extremities and eyes was common among both survivors and victims,” detail experts, who remember that it was not unusual for patients who survived the plague to do so with amnesia. “The most terrible thing was the despair into which people fell when they realized that they had contracted the plague. They immediately adopted an attitude of absolute hopelessness and, by giving in in this way, they lost their capacity for resistance,” Thucydides reflects. “Words are insufficient when trying to give a general image of the illness.” Ruling out candidates. With that starting point, Papadimitrakis and his colleagues developed a list of diseases that the Athenians of 2,400 years ago could have contracted and that coincided to a greater or lesser extent with the symptoms described by Thucydides. They came up with 17 potential ‘candidates’, including cholera, measles, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, Ebola, malaria, smallpox, bubonic plague, ergotism or Lassa fever. Then with that chart on the table, two questions were asked: Which of those diseases caused rashes and gangrene? How many are transmitted between humans? And what historical evidence is there for each of these ailments? Thanks to this analysis they reached a series of conclusions, although the team warns that they are only hypotheses based on probability, not firm and unquestionable truths. “The plague of Athens presents difficulties in identifying the causal agent due to several factors. The main source of information is the accounts of Thucydides, but his lack of medical knowledge and the lapse of up to 20 years between the events and their documentation can lead to erroneous interpretations,” the authors explain. “Furthermore, the inability to isolate or culture the responsible microorganism poses a major obstacle. Even if preserved bodies of plague victims were discovered, the microbes would have decomposed over time.” And what is the conclusion? That of the diseases analyzed, the one with the most votes is typhoid fever. “It appears to meet most of the criteria, so it is considered the most likely agent,” summary the researchers. Furthermore, in a necropolis from the time of the epidemic, remains of the bacteria that trigger this disease … Read more

OpenAI already knows which device will replace our smartphone in the age of AI. It will be another smartphone, according to Kuo

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He doesn’t always get it right, but Ming-Chi-Kuo just made a particularly striking statement. According to your dataOpenAI is preparing its first “mobile AI agent”, a smartphone that will be quite different from the current ones not so much in form as in substance. If its predictions come true, we could be facing a device that will shake the pillars of the current mobile segment. Hello, “OpenAI phone”. Kuo states that mass production of this smartphone designed by OpenAI will begin in the first half of 2027. He also tells us that the SoC that will govern this device will be a customized version of the future MediaTek Dimensity 9600 manufactured with TSMC’s N2P process and that will theoretically arrive in the second half of the year. The mobile that wants to see the world. This chip will have some special features, such as an ISP (Integrated Signal Processor) with an HDR system that allows optimizing the visual perception of the world. It is logical: the mobile wants to become an integral part of our interaction with the world, and that visual capacity is critical. Two NPUs better than one. It will also have a dual NPU architecture to increase its AI computing capacity. It will theoretically integrate LPDDR6 memory and will have UFS 5.0 to avoid memory bottlenecks. If all goes well, Kuo says, between 2027 and 2028 30 million units will be distributed. Not anything else, but the plan seems incredibly ambitious. Paradigm shift. This type of device, Kuo points outwill doom the UI as we know it. The concept of navigating a patchwork of icons to perform independent tasks will be obsolete. The concept proposed by OpenAI understands that the user does not want to use an “application stack”, but rather achieve objectives through a centralized agent. This implies a radical redesign of the smartphone in which the screen stops being a menu of options and becomes a kind of mirror of what the user wants, of their “intentions.” We went from a manual interaction to a proactive inference, because the AI ​​is responsible for detecting what needs to be done to complete the action that the user needs. Without touching the screen. Task resolution rules over navigation. OpenAI being Apple. To achieve this OpenAI needs to control everything on this device, so similar to what happens with Apple and its iPhone. For an AI agent to function seamlessly, it needs access to sensors and device status in real time, something that current operating systems restrict by design. OpenAI wants to control both the hardware and the software to capture all the relevant information at all times. The technical barrier is not the AI ​​model, but that total control that also requires perfect management of memory and energy consumption. Apple, by the way, is in that same battle, although in a different way. The energy challenge. It seems logical to think that this device bases a good part of its capacity on AI models in the cloud, but also that it will have the ability to execute some tasks thanks to small local models. Hence having two NPUs that allow at least certain tasks to be executed on the mobile itself. That will be crucial precisely regarding energy consumptionbecause this AI that automates tasks by chaining them consumes much more computing than the usual interaction with an app today. App Store in danger of extinction. There is a particularly striking idea here. The app store economics faces existential disruption. The current model relies on friction: you need to open a specific app for each task, which justifies the 30% “tax” and the walled garden. If an AI agent can book a flight or order food by directly accessing the background APIs, the icon on the home screen disappears. The “app” stops being a destination and becomes an invisible tool. This not only threatens Apple’s revenue, but redefines mobile development towards an “API-first” ecosystem, where the graphical interface is irrelevant and competition is decided by agent efficiency, not UI design. Goodbye, privacy? And in this context, privacy could once again become the price of that “it’s so convenient to use a device like this” of these future mobiles. For an AI agent to be useful and function truly autonomously, it needs to know everything or almost everything about us. Our location, health, messages and of course the screen content at all times, among other things. The opacity of proprietary models will mean that we will never know what data is leaked to the cloud to “improve the service”, turning privacy into a variable controlled (once again) by the manufacturer. In Xataka | Microsoft has insisted on making Windows “agent.” His users have reminded him that they had not asked for it

The world wants to verify the age of children so that they do not access social networks. Children’s solution: paint a mustache

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The United Kingdom presume to have one of the strictest legislations in the world when it comes to protecting minors from social networks. The curious thing is that young people are managing to demonstrate that age verification technology has a unique Achilles heel: an eyebrow pencil. Look, I have a mustache. The British country has been forcing platforms to implement age verification measures in accordance with its Online Safety Act for months. However, a recent study from the NGO Internet Matters reveals that the limits imposed by these platforms are surprisingly easy to overcome. In fact, one of the methods is especially striking, because some children simply use an eyebrow pencil to paint a mustache and thus look older than they really are. Children 1 – Machines 0. This agency surveyed 1,000 children and parents in the United Kingdom and although it showed positive effects after activating these measures, it also made it clear that many children saw these systems as an easy obstacle to overcome rather than as a way to keep them safe. 46% of minors believe that the measures are easy to overcome. Only 17% believe that they are very difficult to avoid, while 19% say they do not know. Source: Internet Matters. Cheating machines is trivial. 46% of the children surveyed indicated that These age verification systems are easy to overcomeand only 17% found them difficult to avoid. There are several methods to overcome these systems, but most are simple. For example, using video game characters like ‘Death Stranding’ to show them in front of cameras trying to verify their age. Also show IDs of other people when asked, or simply use false birth dates. (At least) One in three skips the controls. But not everyone uses these methods: although the aforementioned 46% say that it is easy to overcome these systems and another 17% say that they are neither easy nor difficult, “only” 32% admit to having used some technique to overcome them. Of course, it is one thing that only 32% admit it and quite another that these figures are representative taking into account that they are confessing that they are doing something that they should not do. Methods vary, but many use fake birth dates or log in with their parents’ or siblings’ accounts. Complicit parents. The effectiveness of the Online Safety Act depends largely on the family environment, with data suggesting that at least a quarter of parents are uncooperative. The study indicates that 26% of parents have allowed their children to ignore or overcome these age verification systems, and in fact 17% admit have actively helped their children to evade these controls while 9% simply turn a blind eye. It’s not that big of a deal. Many parents justify this “help” by indicating that they understand the risks of their children accessing these platforms, but prefer to supervise the use of services such as TikTok or video games themselves. The idea: allow your children to bypass restrictions to play with friends or stream, but theoretically under your supervision. The failure of putting doors to the field. It’s not just that age verification systems are easy to overcome: The thing is that they do not eliminate risks completely either. In the Internet Matters study, almost half of the minors surveyed (49%) indicated that they had recently encountered toxic material on the Internet. This makes it clear that even children who do not try to bypass these controls still encounter inappropriate content. There are those who advocate going further and push for the end of online anonymity. Image | Jeremiah Lawrence In Xataka | The EU has just ready its app to verify age on the internet. And Ursula von der Leyen warns: “There are no more excuses”

The age verification thing is nothing. Greece wants to completely eliminate anonymity on the internet

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Greece will hold elections in early 2027 and its rulers have had a unique idea to avoid (or mitigate) deepfakesthe disinformation and the toxic speechesespecially in relation to that electoral process, but also in other scenarios. What they want is nothing less than eradicate anonymity of the internet and that you have to reveal your identity on platforms to be able to use them. Remembering democracy. Dimirtis Papastergiou, minister of digital governance in Greece, remembered in Euractiv how democracy was born in his country with a clear objective. “In ancient Greece, everyone could express their opinion openly and by name. They raised their hands and shared their perspective. This should inspire us as we seek to shape a new digital democracy.” Goodbye to anonymity on networks. That reflection is the argument behind a controversial measure: Greece has a plan to try to prohibit anonymity on social networks. This will make it possible to minimize the growing toxicity in these networks, says the minister, who is promoting an idea that is already being debated in the presidential office of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek prime minister. Pseudonyms yes, but always associated with your real identity. The measure does not seek to prohibit the avatars and pseudonyms that users use in their profiles. Instead what you want is to guarantee that the system knows exactly which citizen is behind that label. As the ministry states, any opinion is valid as long as the person expressing it can be traced by the authorities in the event of a legal infraction. Against harassment and defamation. Papastergiou highlights how anonymity has become the perfect shield to attack reputations or harass in a coordinated way. These situations have attempted to be investigated by the Greek police without success due to the opacity of the platforms. If age verification is required link an account with a personthe government may apply measures so that the social cost of defamation is the same in real life as on the screen. The 2027 elections as a catalyst for the decision. Greece’s political calendar has caused this regulatory urgency, because the Greek country will hold general elections early next year. According to the prime minister’s cabinet, the national political debate has become a chaos of fake news and threats orchestrated by both anonymous users and coordinated bot attacks. The electoral campaign has already begun unofficially, and this ban on anonymity is presented as a “hygienic” measure to avoid or at least mitigate disinformation and hate speech that, according to the government, contaminate the coexistence of Greek society. Bad business for Facebook, X or TikTok. Prohibiting anonymity would have a clear impact on the platforms, which since their inception have built their user base assuming that a large portion of them used an anonymous profile. This has favored an extraordinary growth in the number of users, although it is clear that some of them are duplicates or are bots. Papastergiou accuses companies of maintaining this business model for pure economic benefit, prioritizing that over toxicity problems, for example. The confrontation is served: on the one hand, the state demands the ability to identify its citizens, and on the other, companies protect anonymity because that favors the advertising business model. Also in digital press. Pavlos Marinakis, vice president of the government, has gone further and points out that this measure may not be limited to social networks. Their idea is to demand that all articles and comments in digital press are signed by real people, thus eliminating pseudonyms and spaces for collective opinion. This has set off even more alarms, this time among those who defend digital rights, who see here a potential tool to silence criticism and complaints that are made with anonymity as the only shield against retaliation. A European precedent. Greece is the most vocal country in proposing this measure and activating it unilaterally if the European Union does not move. Greece already has been added to this trend of imposing age verification to prohibit the use of social networks by those under 15 years of age. A piecemeal approach poses problems and is even questionable under the DSA framework. In fact, it is to be expected that the EU will rule on the matter, and the approval of such a measure at a pan-European level faces extraordinary obstacles. In Spain has also been considered that possibility, but It’s much easier said than done.. Very dangerous. Dismantling anonymity on the internet undoubtedly has its advantages when it comes to mitigating all the toxic, hateful and misinformation speeches that abound on the internet, but the disadvantages are even greater. The Greek plan assumes that the State will always be a benevolent actor and that this user identification will only be used to prosecute real crimes. However, we are in an era of extreme polarization and such a measure would allow, among other things, to create a gigantic database in which each real DNI would be associated—among other things—with a political opinion. It is the seed of a massive surveillance system that could be more toxic than what it precisely wants to combat. Image | Chaozzy Lin | dole777 In Xataka | You’ve been ‘user84721’ for years. A study just showed that AI can know who you are in minutes

“Toxic” people are altering your DNA and making you age almost a year faster

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‘Toxic’ people can be anywhere, such as the office, school or even in one’s own homewith an effect that quickly depletes our energy when dealing with them. In psychology, these types of people are beginning to be called ‘hasslers‘ and are defined as people who complicate life, whether they are family members, work colleagues or even partners. The problem is that they can even affect physical and mental health. They make us old. That a toxic person can damage our mental health It is something that we have already internalized enough from our own experiences, but now the PNAS magazine has confirmed that chronic stress derived from these relationships has an impact on the “biological clock”, causing our cells to age much faster. How it looked. To reach this conclusion, the researchers analyzed to more than 2,000 adults from the state of Indiana in the United States for almost 20 years. But here they did not limit themselves to asking them about their stress levels in a survey, but rather they cross-referenced the data with different biological markers from their saliva. From here, scientists used epigenetic clocks as algorithms that do not measure how old we are on the DNI, but rather different key points in our DNA that indicate how aged our cells are. Among these points, for example, stands out the methylation of DNA or some very specific chemical marks. The results. This is where it was seen that indeed people who were in relationships with very conflictive people in their immediate environment had an accelerated aging rate of an extra 1.5%. This means that biological age increases by an average of nine months. Because? That something that seems purely psychological affects on a physical level seems like something that has little to do with it, but the reality is that interacting with these people constantly increases the levels of cortisol in the blood, which is the stress hormone. And having a lot of cortisol is not recommended at all, since it is related to an increase in oxidative stress that damages cells. But in addition, the study observed that this process inhibits a key enzyme in cells such as telomerase. And it is key because its function is to protect DNA to prevent it from shortening at an accelerated rate to the point where the cell has to be destroyed. Something that also favors cellular aging. Not everyone suffers the same. Here women, smokers and people with low social support show greater vulnerability to this accelerated aging by being with the wrong people. Furthermore, the study identified that family members and work colleagues have a greater weight in this wear and tear than friends, probably due to the difficulty of “escape” from those ties easily, while with a colleague you have to put up with it no matter what. It can be fixed. Until now we are quite clear that having a toxic relationship gives us more misfortunes than joys, but the question is obligatory: can we go back? Here science suggests that we are facing a partially reversible process, meaning that with psychological therapy, the establishment of clear limits in the social sphere or even physical distancing from that toxic person, the clock can be “slowed down.” Images | Italy Gariev In Xataka | The science of being single: a macro study warns that well-being plummets if you have not had a partner by 25

What is the minimum age this year and how to know when you can retire

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Let’s tell you what it is the new retirement age in 2026since the minimum age has once again increased by 2 months compared to last year. Thus, if you are already close in age and want to know exactly from what years and months you can retire, you will have this information. We are also going to tell you how to know when you can retireusing a tool that will take into account your work history to calculate it for you. So, if you are going to apply for retirementyou will be able to know when you can retire and how much you will earn with this contributory pension. Minimum retirement age in 2026 The minimum retirement age in 2026 becomes 66 years and ten months. This represents an increase of two months compared to the retirement age we had in 2025, which in turn was 2 months higher than the previous year. This new change has begun to be applied starting January 1. And as for the change itself, this is because the retirement age is going to increase little by little over the next few years. You can review this update and how it will continue to change in our article with the retirement table. How to know when it’s time to retire To find out when it is your turn to retire, you can use the new web retirement simulator of Social Security, whose address is benefits.seg-social.es. Once you enter the website, Click on the section Retirement You will see where they ask what they can help you with. You will go to a page with all the procedures related to retirement. here, now press the button Access of the Retirement simulatorwhich will see you in a different colored window. This will take you to the retirement pension simulator page, where you will find several options. In it, simply press the button Simulate which will appear in blue. This will take you to the page where you will have to identify with some of the alternatives that the system offers you. You will be able to use the Cl@ve Permanent or Cl@ve Pinan SMS or via DNIe either digital certificate. Click on the option you want and complete the identification steps. Finally you will enter the simulator, where you will be able to edit and confirm your personal situations. When you do, you will be able to see your retirement pension simulation, where The exact date on which you can retire will be indicatedand the amounts you will receive when you finally do it. In Xataka Basics | Request a card for Social Security retirees and take advantage of discounts

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