age

We knew that olive trees were very old trees, what we did not imagine was that they reached 4,000 years of age.

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The olive tree is undoubtedly one of the most iconic trees in the Mediterranean basin. Olive groves have populated the fields of southern Europe and the Levant since time immemorial, but such is the longevity of this species that the history of some of these trees also dates back to, at least, antiquity. An example of this is the Vouves olive treelocated on the Greek island of Crete. Conservative estimates put it on this tree about 2,000 years. This would imply that in his life he could be a silent witness to events such as the division of the Roman Empire, the fall of Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire and, of course, the birth of contemporary Greece. The most extensive estimates estimate that this tree could reach 4,000 years old. This would not only make it a contemporary of figures such as Pythagoras, Aristotle or Alexander the Great but would also imply that this plant was born in Minoan Crete and was Witness the collapse of the Late Bronze Ageone of the most intriguing events that occurred at the dawn of history as we understand it. But perhaps the most surprising detail of all this is that the Vouves olive tree continues to bear fruit. This has led many to ask, how is this possible? What makes this specimen and its species in general so long-lived? The olive tree (Olea europaea) has a life expectancy that, although it does not reach millennia, does exceed several centuries. It is estimated that the life expectancy of trees of this species around five centuriesalthough there is some debate about it. In this sense, a study published in 2021 in the magazine Dendrochronologyestimated that the majority of “monumental olive trees” had maximum ages ranging between 300 and 500 years. Estimating the age of an olive tree is difficult. We noted at the beginning that estimates of the age of this ancient tree ranged between 2,000 and 4,000 years, a very wide range precisely because of the difficulty involved in calculating the age of these trees. Dendrochronology is based on using the growth rings of tree trunks to estimate their age: how many rings, how many years. Counting rings in a felled specimen is simple, but doing it in a living tree and doing it in an olive tree is another story. The trunks of the olive trees grow irregularly, which implies an apparently chaotic pattern in the rings inside, making counting especially difficult, as I pointed out. a study published in 2013 in the magazine PLOS One. Its curious growth could be related to its longevity. According to Scott Travers, a biologist at Rutgers University, in an article for Forbesone of the “secrets” behind longevity of these trees is in vegetative or clonal reproduction. That is, in the fact that this tree is made up of various cuttings that start from the same root. This, adds Travers, allows this type of plants to survive extreme conditions, including fires, cuts and similar incidents. Another survival trick Travers continues explainingis in the biochemistry of the tree, which offers mechanisms that allow it to repair damaged tissues, as well as defend itself against pathogenic organisms. The same oil that we humans use is used by the tree that gives it to us through its fruits. The elderly around us Spain also has ancient olive trees, although if we want to find a tree that competes in age with the Vouves olive tree, we have to go to Portugal. It would be an olive tree located in Abrantesin the center of Portugal. According to a study carried out by the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD), Mouchao would be the tree that would hold this record with an age that would be around 3,350 years old. Spain also has ancient olive trees and among them all stands out. Arion’s Fargea tree that we can find in the province of Tarragona. The estimated age of this olive tree It is more than 1,700 years old. This implies that this ancient tree would have been planted in the time of Emperor Constantine I. Olive trees are not the only ancient tree species in our environment. Cedars, sequoias and even Canarian dragon trees can also reach ages that would make the biblical Methuselah pale. Olive trees are trees with a long life expectancy but they do not usually fill the lists of the longest living trees on the planet. The two longest-lived non-cloned trees known are two pines called Prometheus and Methuselahwhose ages are estimated to be over 4,000 years old. Both belong (or belonged in the case of Prometheus) to the species Pinus longaevathe “long-lived pine” so this fact is not entirely surprising. When Prometheus was cut, the botanists who analyzed it counted more than 4,800 rings, so they estimated its age to be about 4,900 years. Estimates indicate that Methuselah has also surpassed by decades the 4,800 year old mark. If we include clonal organisms we can find older trees. For example, the Pando forestconsidered the largest living organism on the planet, composed of thousands of cuttings from the same clonal tree, could have about 80,000 years old according to some estimates. In Xataka | A retiree planted a tree in 2003 in one of the most dangerous areas of Sao Paulo. Today it is an amazing “jungle” of the city In Xataka | We have found the oldest tree in the EU and it has been installed for 1,500 years in a very special place: Teide Image | Eric Nagle, CC BY-SA 4.0 This article was originally published in Xataka in April 2025.

There are companies that want to install an age verifier

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Already in 2018 we were talking about vaping was becoming popular among teenagers and today, eight years later, things do not seem to have improved. In schools it has become a recurring problem with students carrying their vaper in their backpack as if it were just another accessory. Now there are companies looking for solutions so that minors cannot access their products. Age verification. The concept is very topical in the technological world. In the midst of the debate about whether prohibit access to social networks for those under 16 years of ageage verification systems are presented as a critical element to make this possible. What we did not expect is to find this concept linked to vapers or electronic cigarettes, but it is exactly what some manufacturers of this type of products are considering, as they say in Wired. Biometrics and blockchain. It is the proposal of IKE Techa company formed from the collaboration between the vaper manufacturer Ispire Technology and Chemular, a consulting firm specialized in the nicotine market. Their approach is to use a combination of biometrics, blockchain and a BLE chip integrated directly into the cartridge to guarantee the user’s age. The system works through an app in which the identity document is scanned and a selfie video is taken. This data is verified using an identification service such as Clear or ID.me and, if the verification is positive, the vaper is unlocked via Bluetooth. For it to remain active, the mobile phone with which the identification was made must remain close to the vaper. According to the company’s tests, the system showed 100% effectiveness. The reason. It is not that vape manufacturers have suddenly decided to insure their products, but it is a consequence of regulation. At the beginning of the month the FDA (the body that regulates foods and substances in the US) published a warning draft of the risk that flavored electronic cigarettes pose for young people. Although at the moment they are guides and their application is not mandatory, it makes it clear that this is where the regulation is moving, which is why there are already companies taking steps to protect themselves. Doubts. IKE Tech claims that it showed its technology to the FDA and they loved it, but there are many doubts about it. Speaking to Wired, Stanton Glantz, director of the Tobacco Control Research and Education Center, is not clear that this system will really work and believes that “every technical solution has a way of getting around it.” The truth is that once the vaper is activated, the system does not control if another person is using it, so an adult could activate it and then a minor use it. For Wang, a system that would work is to install geofences so that vapers are deactivated near schools or in prohibited places such as airplanes. Legal loophole. The fact that vapers have been so accessible to younger people is that there was a legal vacuum that did not equate them to tobacco in terms of regulation. He draft anti-smoking law of 2025 finally put them at the same level, which means that smoke-free spaces also include them and their consumption is prohibited for those under 18 years of age. The law is expected to come into force later this year. Flavors and colors. There is also another issue that has attracted the younger audience and that is marketing. Organizations like the WHO wave AECC have warned that vapers have been marketed in countless fruit or candy flavors, with colorful designs and a fresh and striking aesthetic, almost as if they were toys. In addition, strategies such as advertising at festivals or through influencers who held contests and raffles have been used. To this we must add the fact that there is no specific legislation, which means that we find disposable vapers in all types of stores within reach of anyone. According to data from the 2025 Secondary Education Drug Use Survey50% of young people between 14 and 18 years old claimed to have tried vaping and 27% admitted to having done so recently. The problem is still there. Even if the law comes into force and the age verification systems work perfectly, the question remains that They are very harmful to healthwhether they have nicotine or not. When vaping, the lungs are exposed to a wide variety of chemicals such as propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin or flavorings. The argument for vaping is that it is better than the combustion that occurs when smoking traditional cigarettes and there are studies that suggest that this is sothe question is whether replacing an evil with a lesser evil is the solution. In Xataka | The tobacco industry had found an escape route in vapes. And Spain is already considering putting an end to it Image | VapeClubMY in Unsplash

Three months ago Australia banned social media for those under 16 years of age. It is already investigating possible breaches

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Just three months ago, Australia launched one of the most ambitious regulations that have been proposed so far on social networks and minors. The measure came into force on December 10, 2025 with a clear message: force platforms to prevent those under 16 years of age from having accounts and give families back part of the control over the digital lives of the youngest. From the first moment it was presented as a pioneering initiative, but something important was also assumed from the beginning: applying it was not going to be easy. The first doubts. The rule has already entered its most delicate phase, checking whether it is really being applied as planned. The eSafety regulator has opened the first formal review and has put platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube under scrutiny. The agency speaks of “significant concerns” and points to failures in control mechanisms. It also points out that current systems are not effectively preventing those below that threshold from continuing to open new accounts. How minors are sneaking in. The report goes beyond a general warning and focuses on very specific failures in the control systems. It has been detected that there are not enough safeguards to prevent users under the permitted age from creating new accounts, but also something more striking: some platforms allow the verification processes to be repeated until the user manages to pass them. Also in certain cases, these profiles are invited to demonstrate that they meet the age requirement even after having indicated that they do not, which shows inconsistencies in the application of controls. A problem that was already anticipated. The difficulties in applying the rule have not arisen now, they were already on the table from day one. When the law came into force, The Australian Government itself admitted that its implementation would not be perfect, and the first signs pointed in that direction. According to ABC, Some minors managed to bypass the verification systems with basic tricks, such as altering their appearance in facial controls. The outlet itself also warned that parents and older siblings could help some children get around the restrictions, an early sign that the challenge was not just in passing the law, but in making it really work. What is at stake for the platformss. The investigation opened by eSafety does not remain a diagnosis, it opens the door to possible sanctions if it is demonstrated that companies have not taken reasonable measures to prevent minors affected by the rule from having an account. Reuters points out that The fines can reach 49.5 million Australian dollars and affect the aforementioned services and platforms. The regulator has already begun collecting evidence and hopes to close at least part of its investigations by mid-year, which places technology companies in a scenario in which non-compliance is no longer just a reputational risk. The Spanish mirror. What is happening in Australia helps to put into context a debate that has also gained weight in Spain, although here it is at a different point. Peter Sánchez announced in February that The Government wants to prohibit access to social networks for minors under 16 years of age within a broader package of measures on age verification, traceability of hate and responsibility of technology managers. The key difference is that that ban has not come into force and is not being enforced. Still, the Australian case offers a useful reference to anticipate what kind of challenges may appear when such a measure moves from political announcement to actual implementation. Images | cottonbro studio In Xataka | “What the hell is happening with Lidl Spain?”: Germans are speechless at the chain’s comic surrealism

If the question is how to survive the tsunami of information in the age of AI, the answer is simple: learning not to read

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This morning I counted the open tabs on Day, my browser. Twenty-five. There was a Counterpoint analysis there that I opened five days ago to read “as soon as I can” but that I haven’t touched yet. A very good looking thread from X. Three newsletters to medium scrollwaiting for me like half-done homework. And so on a few more things. I’ve been writing about technology for fifteen years. My job is literally to read, filter and think about what I read. And yet, or precisely because of that, it is increasingly difficult for me to distinguish when I am informing myself from when I am simply moving my eyes. We have been treating reading as a virtue in itself for centuries. “Read more” has always been the universal advice, the automatic response to almost any shortcoming. AND tmade sense when the problem was the scarcity of sources. But the problem began to be different and we continued the same, with the same reflection. The mistake is that we have transferred the respect and moral inertia that we had for a good book to formats that do not deserve it. We read an endless thread of X, a marketing PDF or a newsletter inflated feeling that passing your eyes over that text is a meritorious act by default. It is no longer. Or at least, not always. I know this goes against me. AI has broken the equation in a way that borders on absurd comedy. Today anyone generates a ten-page report on any topic in three minutes. Any creator inflates an idea of ​​a paragraph until it fills a thousand words without adding a single new piece of information, just trash. And the great paradox is something we saw coming a long time ago: Our best defense is to use that same technology. We live in a loop where A machine lengthens a text to make it seem important, and we use another machine to summarize it for us in three bullets and thus save us the procedure. Some give the badge and others neutralize it. The amount of text available is no longer related to the knowledge it contains. There are more words than ever because it is easier than ever to generate them, but It is not at all clear that there are more ideas. What is growing is the pressure to consume them all. I feel like, often, that fear of being left out seems like intellectual curiosity when what’s underneath is simple FOMO. Traditional functional illiteracy consisted of deciphering the letters but not understanding a word of what they said. The new one looks more like the opposite: We understand each text perfectly, but we have lost the ability to decide if it deserves to be read.. We don’t filter. We do not rule out. We don’t say “this is bullshit that doesn’t give me anything.” Not enough. And we don’t do it because discarding information is something that we continue to feel like a loss, like an act of laziness that gives us away. But it is just the opposite. The ability to not read (identify in three seconds that something is not worth your next ten minutes) is today an act of intelligence that contributes almost as much as reading itself. And for that you need to develop your own red flag. In my case, if a text promises a revelation but the first paragraph is pure introductory nonsense, get out. If I sense grandiloquent adjectives and filling robotic structures, out. If there is not a single piece of data before the first scroll, on the run. I don’t even mention the monoline structure so common in X and LinkedIn. There, it directly catapults. When ChatGPT arrived, many of us thought that the risk of AI was that people would stop reading. It may be worse: that you read more than ever without thinking more than ever. Let it process without digesting. Accumulate information like someone who accumulates open tabs, with the vague promise of returning to them. We know he won’t. We never go back. I know this because I haven’t closed those twenty-five tabs all week and in the end I will close them all at once, without reading them, with a mixture of relief and guilt. But I have begun to understand that closing tabs suddenly after having selected the most interesting thing is a very healthy practice. In the end, the new functional illiterate is too much like my browser this morning: overloaded with tabs, full of promises to read, and completely unable to process a single more idea. In Xataka | There is a generation working for free as a documentarian of their own life: they are not influencers but they act as if they were. Featured image | Xataka

The laptop is still important in the age of AI

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Samsung has reserved the Mobile World Congress to announce the arrival in Spain of its new batch of laptops: the Galaxy Book6 series. This family is made up of three models, namely Book6, Book6 Pro and Book6 Ultra, and its objective is not so much to compete in specifications and price, but also to position itself as one of the fundamental pillars of the AI ​​ecosystem that the firm is developing. The news. Samsung has announced the launch in Spain of its new laptops. The Galaxy Book6 will start at 1,149 euros, the Galaxy Book6 Pro will start at 1,799 euros and the Galaxy Book6 Ultra will start at 3,399 euros base. It will be available from March 11 and its specifications are as follows: Galaxy Book5 Galaxy Book5 pro Galaxy Book5 ultra SCREEN 14 inch IPS Anti-Glare WQXGA+ (2,880 x 1,800 pixels) 350 nits brightness — 16 inch IPS Touch WUXGA (1920 x 1200 pixels) 350 nits — 16 inch IPS Anti-Glare WUXGA (1920 x 1200 pixels) 350 nits 14/16 inch Touch AMOLED Anti-reflective panel 16 inch Touch-AMOLED Anti-reflective panel WQXGA+ (2,880 x 1,800 pixels) 1,000 nits DIMENSIONS AND WEIGHT 14 inches: 313.4 x 221.1 x 14.9mm 1.48 kilos — 16 inches 357.1 x 248 x 16.8mm (touch) 357.1 x 248 x 16.8mm (non-touch) 14 inches: 314.2 x 220.6 x 11.6mm 1.24 kilos — 16 inches: 356.9 x 248 x 11.9mm 1.59 kilos 356.9 x 249 x 15.4mm 1.79 kilos PROCESSOR Intel Core Ultra 5/7 Intel Graphics NPU up to 49 TOPS Intel Core Ultra X7/7/5 Intel Arc Graphics/Intel Graphics NPU up to 50 TOPS Intel Core Ultra X9/9/X7/7 Intel Arc/RTX 5060/5070 Graphics NPU up to 50 TOPS RAM 16/32GB LPDDR5x 16/32GB LPDDR5x 16/32/64GB LPDDR5x STORAGE Up to 1TB PCIe SSD Expansion port Up to 1TB PCIe SSD Expansion port (16″) Up to 1TB PCIe SSD Expansion port (16″) FRONT CAMERA 2MP 2MP 2MP BATTERY 61.2Wh 45W USB C fast charging 14 inches: 67.18 Wh 16 inches: 78.07 Wh 65W fast charging 80.2Wh Fast charging 100/140W OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 11 Home Windows 11 Home Windows 11 Home CONNECTIVITY Wi-Fi 6E Bluetooth v5.4 802.11ax 2×2 USB Type-C x2 USB Type-A x2 HDMI microSD RJ45, S-Lock combo jack Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth v5.4 802.11 be 2×2 Thunderbolt 4 x2 USB Type-A HDMI 2.1 port (8K@60Hz) combo jack Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth v5.4 802.11 be 2×2 Thunderbolt 4 x2 USB Type-A HDMI 2.1 port (8K@60Hz) combo jack OTHERS Stereo speaker Double microphone Dolby Atmos Stereo/quad speaker (16″) Double microphone Dolby Atmos 6x speakers Double microphone Dolby Atmos Haptic trackpad PRICE From 1,149 euros From 1,799 euros From 3,399 euros The mobile as the center. Galaxy phones, especially Galaxy S and, more specifically, the Galaxy S Ultraare the central axis around which Samsung’s product strategy pivots. The thread that unites the entire ecosystem, that is, tablets, watches, headphones and, of course, computers, is artificial intelligence. This is how Samsung makes money: the secret is in the IPHONE Samsung Galaxy Book Series6 | Image: Xataka Samsung’s idea is that our devices know us better and anticipate our needs, being proactive when it comes to suggesting data or taking action. In that sense, the more complete the ecosystem is, the more capacity to react it will have. It is something that Motorola and Lenovo They have also understood and that companies like Apple, in their own way, have been working for years. Samsung wants to connect everything and knows that in its enormous ecosystem it has a great competitive advantage, so it makes sense that it wants to continue exploiting it. And it works for them. According to internal data shared by the company, the laptop market grew by 9% in value in Spain last year. Samsung, for its part, has been the brand that has grown the most, with 88% in value and 93% in units. It is possible that AI PCs have not taken off as the market would have liked, but perhaps that is because the real value It is not in the execution of AI models locallybut in how products integrate with each other in the age of AI. Samsung Galaxy Book Series6 | Image: Xataka The role of AI in Book6. Samsung’s new laptops integrate Galaxy AI and Microsoft Phone Link. What does that mean? That the user can use the mobile phone from the PC, transfer files and synchronize devices to, for example, use a tablet as an external monitor. You can also use AI features such as generative editing, AI Select, voice file search, writing assistant, as well as all the Copilot+PC options. To do this, Samsung relies on the cloud, but also on the NPU of the Intel Core Ultra Series 3 that the three laptops mount inside. Roughly speaking, this allows certain functions to be executed locally, which increases privacy. The Ultra model, for its part, mounts NVIDIA RTX 5070/5060 GPUs, so, at least on paper, it should also excel in gaming and graphic tasks. Samsung Galaxy Book Series6 | Image: Xataka The importance of the laptop. And, although AI has proven to be a valuable ally in mobility, when it comes to productivity the laptop continues to be the reference device. The mobile phone is fine for doing things on the go, but when it comes to being really productive, a larger screen and a proper keyboard win out. Brands, aware of this, are working to ensure that their devices understand each other better and better and have found a way to achieve this in AI. AI cannot and should not be seen as something isolated, but as a common thread between devices that, for better and for worse, are condemned to understand each other. Images | Samsung In Xataka | Samsung has a plan for all its factories: have humanoid robots controlled by a central AI work

Discord wanted to implement an age verification system. Until the world came crashing down on him

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Discord has backtracked on one of his most controversial plans of recent years. The messaging and voice platform, with more than 200 million active users, has slowed down your system of global age verification until the second half of 2026 after its initial announcement sparked a firestorm of criticism. When people have started leaving in droves and looking for other alternatives, the company has thought twice. Chaos. Discord announced a few weeks ago which would implement an age verification system to ensure that adult content only reached adult users. The idea was that all accounts would start with a “teen-appropriate” setting by default, unless they could prove they were of legal age. The problem: The communication was so horrible that a significant part of the community understood that the platform was going to ask everyone for facial scans and ID documents in order to continue using it. The result was chaos. Distrust. In October of last year, Discord confirmed that had suffered a security breach at one of its third-party providers. This exposed sensitive data, including photographs of identity documents, of approximately 70,000 users. That background was very fresh when the announcement of the new system came. Added to this was that among the partners who were being considered to implement the verification Person appeareda company with financial ties to Peter Thiel, co-founder of Palantir, a company known for its contracts with US government immigration and surveillance agencies. And of course, for many users, this combination was simply unacceptable. What Discord says was really going to happen. In a release Posted on Tuesday, Discord CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy stated that more than 90% of users would never have needed to verify anything, because most do not access age-restricted content or modify default security settings. In addition, it ensures that the platform already has internal systems capable of determining the age of majority of many users automatically, analyzing signals such as the age of the account, whether it has a linked payment method or the type of servers to which it belongs. According to Vishnevskiy, this system does not read messages or analyze the content posted by users. Recognizing mistakes, with nuances. “The way this landed led many of you to believe we were demanding facial scans and document uploads from everyone,” Vishnevskiy wrote. “That’s not what’s happening, but the fact that so many people believe it tells us that we failed at the most basic thing: clearly explaining what we’re doing and why.” That said, it is worth remembering what points out the media PC Gamer, since Discord did not make any of these concessions until after the avalanche of criticism. What changes now? The platform promises several things before relaunching the system globally. Among them, adding more verification options, including means of payment, publishing detailed information on its website about each third-party provider and their data practices, and requiring that any company that offers facial age estimation do so entirely on the user’s device, without sending biometric data to any server. On Persona, Discord confirms that it ran a limited test with them in the UK in January and decided not to continue, precisely because it didn’t meet that last requirement. A global address. Discord is not new, and it is happening in a much broader context. The United Kingdom, Australia and Brazil already have legislation that requires platforms to verify the age of their users to access adult content. Europe and several US states they go in the same direction. Discord argues that by building its own system, it can demonstrate to regulators that it is possible to verify age without collecting identity data. In countries where there is already a legal obligation, the system will remain active regardless of the global delay. Cover image | Discord and own assembly In Xataka | “We will not flood our ecosystem with soulless AI garbage.” We already know what Asha Sharma wants to do as CEO of Microsoft Gaming

The Ministry of Consumer Affairs wants to prohibit them for children under 16 years of age

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For years, Spain (the West, in general) has had a problem with energy drinks. According to 2025 data, 38.4% of students from 14 to 18 years old declares having consumed them in the last 30 days. And so it shows in sales: last year 105 million liters were sold; which represents a growth of almost 39% in the last four years. And today, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs has just announced that wants to take action on the matter. As explained, it will prohibit the sale of energy drinks to children under 16 years of age and will impose an additional restriction for drinks with more than 32 mg of caffeine (per 100 ml) up to 18 years of age. Does it make sense? Is it a real problem? Will the ban help? What does the Ministry want to do? For a start, Consumption wants transfer to the legal level something that was already explicitly indicated in the recommendations of the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition. Something that also already applies in specific environments and areas of the country. However, the regulation has details that will merit detailed analysis. For example, the threshold of 320 mg/L is striking in one context (the european) that sets notices starting at 150. Above all, because a gray area will be created for drinks labeled “high in caffeine” that can be sold to minors under 18. We will have to read the details of the rule to study its implications, but what does seem certain is that, with this step, Spain is going to enormously simplify one of the big problems that its regulation had on this issue: the disparity in minimum ages throughout the country. And that, we hope, will simplify its approach from social policies and public health. But what’s the problem with all this? The image of kids with huge 500 ml cans and bright colors has become ‘normal’ and the growth is enormous (in the United Kingdom, where we have longer series, the consumption of these products increased by 155% between 2006 and 2014). And how says the Spanish Food Safety Agency (AESAN), “the consumption of more than 60 milligrams of caffeine in adolescents aged 11 to 17 years (about 200 milliliters of energy drink with 32 mg of caffeine/100 ml) can cause sleep disturbances.” And this is just the beginning of the problems it can cause. “From 160 milligrams of caffeine (500 milliliters of an energy drink with 32 mg of caffeine/100 ml), (the consumption of these drinks) can cause general adverse health effects: psychological effects and behavioral alterations and cardiovascular disorders.” An invisible health problem. Because, as we know, lack of sleep is related to immunological problems, metabolic, cardiovascular, emotional and cognitive; with disorders such as diabetes or of the obesity. It leads us to be more tired and irritable, raises our stress levels and makes us take more risks and make more mistakes. None of this means that we are going to develop one of these diseases from consuming energy drinks, but it is clear that it puts us in a complicated situation. Above all, because it coincides with what we already know from other sources. “Energy drink consumption, even infrequent, was associated with several negative health indicators. Reporting of several health-compromising behaviors increased with frequency of energy drink consumption.” They are the conclusions by Maija Puupponen and her team at the University of Jyväskylä. And how explained Julio BasultoTo begin with, these drinks are correlated “with a significant increase in the likelihood of insomnia, nervousness, anxiety, depression, impulsivity, and poor academic performance, among others.” As if that were not enough, its frequent consumption can generate “hypertension, loss of bone density, osteoporosis, poor psychological, physical, educational and general well-being, among other consequences.” But the problem goes beyond health: it is cultural. And energy drinks have become a “prestigious” cultural practice among young people that is linked to an enormous amount of risk behavior. Nobody wants to compare it with tobacco, of course: but the truth is that many of the psychosocial mechanisms involved They have everything to do with tobacco. At some point there had to be a national debate about this and better sooner than later. Image | Diego Calabresa In Xataka | It’s not just sugar, hundreds of industries try to deceive us: we have a problem and it’s time to look for solutions

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

The Middle Ages seem like a dark age. Until you discover that they were able to count up to 9,999 on their fingers.

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Historians have been trying for decades free her from her bad reputationbut it’s still hard not to feel a pang of compassion when one thinks of the Middle Ages. Logical. We have been burned with the idea that it was a time of wars, epidemicsfamines, wars and superstition in which humanity moved away from the advances of previous centuries to throw itself into the arms of barbarism. Things change when you find out that an 8th century monk was capable of doing something that will probably seem impossible to you (and most people): count up to 9,999 with your handsrepresenting any number with just your fingers. Count with your hands? Exact. If we keep doing it in a rudimentary way (and limited) today, in a time when almost everyone walks around with a phone in their pocket, imagine how important the art of counting on your fingers was centuries ago. How do you do addition and subtraction when you have nothing to rely on? And by nothing we do not mean a calculator or a primitive abacus, but tools as basic as paper and a pencil or pen to take notes. For centuries those who wanted to do calculations were content with what was closest to hand. And usually that was (pardon the redundancy) his own hands, his 10 fingers and the universe of combinations that opened up his joints and, above all, his imagination. The result is an ancient art that has fallen into disuse over the centuries, but came to acquire an astonishing level of perfection. In fact it can date back to ancient times, long before the Middle Ages. One name: Bede Venerabilis. If we know the peculiar way our ancestors had to count astronomical figures with their fingers, it is thanks largely to a Benedictine monk who lived between the 7th and 8th centuries in what is now the United Kingdom. His name: Bede, although he is usually known as Saint Bede the Venerable. In 725 the religious wrote ‘De temporum ratione’ (‘The Calculation of Time’), a treatise that talks about the cosmos, calendars and the best way to calculate the date of Easter, a relevant topic in its day. Before addressing most of these questions, the author however touches on a simpler and more important question: “De computo vel loquela digitorum”how to make beads with your fingers. Bede does not expose us to a system devised by him, but rather he describes to us a practical art that has its roots long ago. The power of one hand. “Before we begin, with the help of God, to talk about chronology and its calculation, we consider it necessary to first briefly show the very necessary and practical technique of counting on the fingers,” starts Bede in the first chapter. From there it goes on to explain how we should place our fingers to show the numbers from 1 to 9,999. By complicating the system a little more you can reach 999,999. There is even a symbol for the million “Somma di arithmetica”, by Luca Pacioli. And how the hell do they do it? With imagination, ingenuity and also a certain agility with the hands. Especially if what we want is to represent high figures. In Scientific Culture UPV/EHU mathematics professor Raúl Ibáñez signs an interesting article which details how the system works, including graphics and translated quotes from Bede himself, who first explains how to place the fingers of the left hand to represent low numbers. “When you say one, bending the left little finger, place it in the middle joint of the palm. When you say two, bend the second finger placing it in the same place,” clarifies the Benedictine monkwho continues patiently explaining to us how to show figures with the left hand, move to tens or make the jump to hundreds and thousands with the help of the right. The key is in the meaning of each hand and groups of fingers, which are assigned the value of the units of thousands, hundreds, tens and ones. If we want to go further and express tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands we will only have to vary the position of each of the hands with respect to the body. Beyond the Middle Ages. In a video published in 2020 by the BBC, Seb Falk, author of ‘The Light Ages’, also explains how centuries ago they managed to represent astronomical quantities with their fingers. The most surprising thing is that the system long predates Vera. “It was used from Roman times to the Middle Ages (11th to 13th centuries) throughout Europe,” says the historian. “Just as when we write we have a column for units, another for tens, for hundreds and thousands, they dedicate the little finger, ring and middle fingers of the left hand to the units and the index and thumb to the tens. On the right, the thumb and index indicate the hundreds and the other fingers, the thousands.” In short: ten fingers, 9,999 numbers. It’s all a matter of internalizing the system, understanding its dynamics and playing with positions. The truth is that the method is so curious that it has aroused the interest of authors after Bede, such as the mathematician Jacob Leupoldwho addresses it in an 18th century treatise; or the famous Luca Pacioliwhich refers to (with some changes) in ‘Summa’. Why get so complicated? At a time when we are accustomed to walking with smartphones (with their respective calculators) in their pockets and it is not difficult to find paper and ink, perhaps we will be surprised by the system that the Venerable Bede tells us about. Things change when we think about the resources they had available centuries ago. And the range of possibilities that such a system opened up, which only needs something as simple and universal as the fingers of the hands. “It was a code, a sign language, that was used in markets, as it was an effective way to communicate … Read more

the minimum dose of exercise that science points to changing the health of those over 60 years of age

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In the 1980s, gerontologist Robert N. Butler launched a phrase that has become in a mantra of modern medicine: “if exercise and physical activity could be packaged as a pill it would be the most widely prescribed and beneficial medication for the population.” Forty years later, science has stopped treating that phrase as a metaphor and turned it into a mathematical calculation. The ROI of the force. Until now, we knew that sport was healthy, but data on its direct clinical profitability were lacking. The GENUD research group, led by José Antonio Casajús, published in Experimental Gerontology at the end of 2025 one of the strongest evidence to date. The essay, carried out with 123 people over 80 years oldprescribed a treatment of three weekly supervised exercise sessions for six months. The clinical results were clear: improvements in functional capacity, reduction in frailty and increase in quality of life. But the data that has aroused the interest of health managers is economic. The conclusion here was that while the cost of the intervention was only 164 euros per person, The savings to the system exceeded 1,000 euros. The clinical squat. If exercise is the ideal drug, clinical evidence points to the squat being the most important active ingredient here. Many studies have precisely validated this movement, which can mean the world to some people, not as a gym exercise but as a diagnostic and treatment tool. Biomechanics is key. Why is the squat so important to medicine? First of all because it is an exercise that demands more on the hip extensorsvital for an elderly person to be able to get up from a chair or bed without help. But in addition, it also activates the quadriceps and plantar flexors more. At the metabolic and cardiovascular level, the impact is systemic. The venous compression that occurs during the squat increases venous return and cardiac output, acting as a natural pump that combats orthostatic hypotension. Even in post-stroke patients, fast squats have been shown to activate the injured rectus femoris, correcting asymmetries and improving postural control. How long. You don’t have to work hard, since a recent study showed that a program of just one minute a day, that is, about thirty seconds of squats and thirty seconds of push-ups, is enough. This is something that was seen with prescription by primary care physicians, improving physical performance in patients over 60 years of age with excellent adherence at 24 weeks. Anti-cancer effect. Beyond the effect on adults, important implications of physical exercises in pediatric cancer have also been seen. This was evidenced by Carmen Fiuza-Luces, from the Physical Exercise and Pediatric Cancer group, who directs the “La Aceleradora” project of the Unoentrecienmil Foundation. And contrary to the belief of having “absolute rest” when you have cancer, the evidence shows that exercise during treatment of pediatric solid tumors It achieves what no drug can. For example, it reduces the side effects of chemotherapy, protects the heart from the toxicity of the treatment or prevents atrophy in sick children. The problem is not the drug. The problem with prescribing exercise in consultation is lack of knowledge about the ‘dose’ that should be given. Just as a doctor does not say ‘take an antibiotic’ without a clear duration and frequency, the same thing happens with sports. You can’t say ‘do sports’. In these cases, exercise requires a dose in the form of frequency and duration, the intensity that must be personalized to each patient and, above all, monitoring with adaptation to the patient’s pathology. Looking for the front door. The Health and Sports Working Group of the Collegiate Medical Organization, coordinated by José Ramón Pallás, is pushing for integrate exercise into the National Health System as a therapy equivalent to drugs. The goal is for the “3 sets of 10 squats” recipe to be as official and binding as any blood pressure pill. In this way, science has done the numbers and all that remains is for the administration to make a move. Images | Victor Freitas In Xataka | Neither 10,000 steps a day nor killing yourself in the gym: the “sweet spot” of exercise according to science is 30 minutes

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