age

The Earth is headed for a new ice age, according to a Science study. And it is precisely because of global warming

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Science is largely in agreement when it suggests that the Earth’s temperature it increases more and moreand logic could lead us to think that the world is going to become in a real desert like the one in Almería. But to everyone’s surprise, what can happen is a great ice agethat is, everything ends up covered in ice. And although it may seem illogical, science wanted to give light about this topic. They have been new models from the University of Bremen and the University of California Riverside, published in Sciencewho have located right there one of the great unexpected dangers of terrestrial geochemistry: under certain conditions, excess heat can activate “biological accelerators” that then cool the planet beyond its original state. Even to reach an ice age. Beyond the rocks. Something that may be unknown to many is that the Earth has a temperature control system like the thermostat in our home. The most accepted was regulation by the slow wear of silicate rocks. However, geological records show episodes in which this natural “thermostat” fails: the Earth freezes from pole to pole, as during the Precambrian glaciations. What is missing from the equation? The new study points to the decisive influence of marine biology and nutrient cycles, especially phosphorus and oxygen. An unexpected loop. When CO₂ emissions and global temperatures rise, the arrival of phosphorus into the oceans also increases, fertilizing the proliferation of algae. These remove CO₂ thanks to photosynthesis in the water, and when they die, they transport that carbon to marine sediments, where it can be trapped for millions of years. As if it were a dumping ground for carbon dioxide on the seabed.. But the key to the loop is oxygen: the explosion of algal productivity consumes the oxygen in the water, meaning that almost no living being can live here. Under these conditions, phosphorus stops being buried and instead of being eliminated it is recycled from the sediment. This fuels new “super blooms” and closes a vicious cycle: ‘More nutrients → more algae → less oxygen → more nutrient recycling → extreme cooling’. The result is that the biological thermostat goes crazy, sequestering carbon at a frenetic pace that the rocks’ slow thermostat cannot compensate for. The new model. The new model integrate these quick feedbacksadding sedimentary chemistry, the phosphorus cycle and the oxygenation state to the traditional silicate weathering models. Surprisingly, when predicting the effect of the “great human experiment” of releasing CO₂, he finds that the system does not always smoothly return to the previous statebut it can overcompensate and take the planet to colder times, in deep glaciations, for tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years.​​ This only occurs when the atmosphere is less rich in oxygen, something common in Earth’s past, which may explain why ice ages coincide with intermediate periods of planetary oxygenation. Today, that same loop would make the “reward” much smoother, although there would still be the risk of long-term cooldown. If we continue burning fossils. In this way, other scientific studies already suggest that large inputs of phosphorus, whether due to massive mining or increased weathering induced by climate change, can increase the risk of anoxia and abrupt cooling events, although this scenario would take centuries or millennia to develop. This is why the acceleration of the phosphorus cycle together with the increase in CO₂ concentrations is conditioning us to the climate changes that we will see in a few million years. And although the Earth system may have the mission of stabilizing, the reality is that this system cannot always be trusted. Images | Denise Schuld In Xataka | We have just identified the oldest glaciers in the world. Where: under South Africa’s big gold mines

Jeff Bezos’ grandfather had the key to finding a job in the age of AI: being an inventor

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With saturated selection processes (or directly broken) and the AI conditioning skills that companies demand, there is a skill that Jeff Bezos considers irreplaceable: the ability to invent. The millionaire value this skill above traditional knowledge or experience. Bezos considers that inventiveness is vital to maintaining creativity and innovation in modern companies, ensuring that he himself has applied it to bring Amazon and Blue Origin to their current situation. Lessons from his grandfather. In an interview During the Italian Tech Week 2025 conference that took place in Turin, the millionaire commented that his grandfather was capable of solving any problem on his Texas ranch by himself, without depending on outside help. “He bought a bulldozer for about $5,000 because it was completely broken. We spent a whole summer fixing it. To remove the transmission, we had to build our own crane. And that’s why he had an incredible ability to adapt. He believed he could solve any problem. And I watched him,” Bezos said during his interview. “He did veterinary work with the cattle. He made the needles himself. He took a small piece of wire and heated it with a blowtorch, flattened it, sharpened it and made a small hole in it. Some cows even survived,” he commented sarcastically. That ability to adapt and create practical solutions taught him the value of inventiveness in facing difficulties, a lesson that Bezos has also applied in his life and in the management of Amazon. The “inventor” of Amazon. Bezos himself defines himself as an inventor, stating that “it is his fundamental nature. Put me in front of a white board and I can generate a hundred ideas in half an hour.” The founder of Amazon looks for those creative skills in his team members. In an interview In 2012 at the Utah Technology Council, Bezos indicated that “when I interview candidates, I ask them to give me an example of something they have invented.” Obviously the millionaire was not referring to a patent, but to a process, an idea or a solution to a problem that existed and for which he imagined a solution. “You have to select people who like to invent, think innovatively,” said the millionaire. Innovation as an antidote to fear. One of the six fears that have defined Jeff Bezos’ career is the fear of garages. Not in the literal sense of the place but of the symbolic sense of innovation that they have acquired: HP was born in a garage, just like Apple. “Two kids in a garage scare me more than the competitors I already know,” assured Bezos in an interview. The inventive capacity is a lever towards innovation and experimentation, which has been one of the pillars of the business culture that has taken Amazon to where it is today. “Someone who comes to Amazon and doesn’t like pioneering, doesn’t like exploring, doesn’t like going down dead ends that often turn out to be dead ends, will leave soon,” Bezos said in his interview. In his job interviews, Bezos asks: “How can we do A and B? What invention do we need to bring the two together?” That is, value those candidates who do not see the options in black and white, but rather look for new ways to combine and improve processes to innovate. AI has accelerated everything. More and more CEOs and senior officials at large technology companies agree that they are the skills and attitudes, and not the knowledgewhich will make candidates stand out in the age of AI. The current CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy, ​​pointed out that knowledge can be acquired over time, but what companies need in this era of constant innovation are people who know how to adapt to any circumstance and learn from it. “The biggest difference between the people I started with in the early stages of my career and what they are doing now has to do with how good they were at learning.” According to Jassy, ​​the attitude and talent to innovate It has to come standard. In Xataka | Jeff Bezos has the world’s laziest metaphor for AI: “someone invented the plow and we all got rich” In Xataka | If your chair limps during a job interview, it’s no coincidence: they’re evaluating more than just your resume. Image | Flickr (iafastro)

One-minute episodes, crazy plots and millions of views: welcome to the age of l

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It was clear that with the inability to maintain attention for too long in a single point, a phenomenon like that of the microdramasfictions in ultra-brief pills with continuous twists and suspense situations, would end up triumphing. Now, after sweeping Asia, they reach the United States and Europe. And they are willing to turn the durations of fictions upside down in streaming. What are they? An audiovisual format that consists of mini-soap operas or short series designed for consumption on mobile devices. Generally, each episode lasts between 60 and 90 seconds, although it can reach up to ten, and the series have between 20 and 100 episodes, accumulating a total duration similar to a feature film. This accelerated narrative is filmed in vertical format, and structured to hook the viewer with shocking hooks in the first seconds, conflicts that evolve quickly and cliffhangers that invite you to watch the next episode without interruptions. Hurry, hurry. Production is ultra-fast and low-cost, with seasons that can be recorded in less than two weeks, allowing for great proliferation of titles. Narratively, microdramas rely on highly addictive stories, inherited from soap operas, with recurring themes such as secret romances with billionaires, revenge, marriages of convenience, even forays into romance and delirious vampire romances… and all condensed with frequent emotional rewards and very little expenditure on sets, editing, soundtrack and technical displays. In Xataka The new fever in China is mobile series with one-minute episodes. And they prepare their landing outside Asia Where was he born? This format originated in China, where they are known as wei duan ju either duanjudriven by the massive emergence into the market of smartphones and the rise of short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishouespecially during the pandemic. Since then, the format has expanded globally, adapting to the audiovisual consumption habits of generation Z and millennials, who prefer short, vertical content for quick consumption on social networks. Where to see them. The main platforms to watch microdramas are YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. According to a study by Ampere Analysis, YouTube It is the leading platform, with 44% of microdrama viewers consuming this content there, where creators monetize directly. TikTok and Instagram are often used to promote them with teasers and teasers that direct users to paid apps like DramaBox, ReelShort either CandyJarTVwhere they can watch the complete series, often under a freemium model (free initial episodes and payment to continue). In these there is already an abundance of non-Asian series: a look at ReelShort allows us to understand the appeal of these products, openly oriented towards the female audience, and with categories that do not hide an exploitative point, almost an emotional fetish: ‘Hidden Identity’, ‘Taboo Relationship’, ‘Babies and Pregnancies’, ‘Love at First Sight’, ‘Vampires and Werewolves’, and of course an immense remnant of products from Asia. And now, in the United States. Alan Mruvka, founder of E! Entertainment Television, plans to launch Verza TVthe first American platform dedicated exclusively to microdramas, which is expected to arrive in mid-November 2025. This pioneering initiative will follow a financing model similar to that common in China: users can watch up to five free episodes of any title, and to access the rest they must pay $4.99. Verza TV’s catalog will include dramas inspired by TikTok trends, reality shows in micro format, interviews and information about celebrities (something Mruvka knows a lot about thanks to his experience with E! Entertainment) and new microdramas based on those that have been successful in Asia. The figures. The global microdrama market is estimated to reach 2025 a projected value of $11 billiona figure that almost doubles the income of FAST channels (free, linear and with ads), which shows the rapid growth of the format. China dominates this market overwhelmingly, contributing close to 83% of global income thanks to its massive domestic production and consumption. A juicy business, quick and easy to produce, and which may soon find a new audience eager for strong and, above all, fast emotions. Photo of Becca Tapert in Unsplash In Xataka | The great Chinese revolution of recent decades is not technological or economic: it is that of Christianity (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news One-minute episodes, crazy plots and millions of views: welcome to the age of l was originally published in Xataka by John Tones .

The United Kingdom put an age verification to access PornHub. Immediately afterwards, its traffic plummeted by 77%

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Since the United Kingdom implemented age verification stricter access to explicit sexual content last July, under the Online Safety Act, traffic to pornographic websites has plummeted. Pornhub, the most visited adult site in the world, ensures that its visits from this country have decreased by 77%. Massive traffic reduction. According to Ofcom, the British communications regulator, visits to sites with pornographic content generally have decreased by almost a third within three months after the law comes into force. Google shows that searches for Pornhub have dropped by about half since then. The regulations require that anyone who accesses this type of website from the United Kingdom prove to be over 18 years old through verifications such as facial identification, email codes or credit card data. It must be taken into account that Pornhub is the nineteenth most visited website on the entire Internet, according to data from Similarweb, which gives dimension to the impact of these figures. The VPN effect complicates measurements. The drop in traffic does not necessarily mean that Brits have stopped consuming pornographic content. And there is a tool that makes actual measurement difficult of traffic from the UK: VPNs. The UK has become one of the fastest growing VPN markets in the world. According to data According to Cybernews, in the first half of 2025, more than 10.7 million downloads of VPN applications were recorded in the country, a figure that is already close to 16.65 million for all of 2024. Ofcom esteem that around a million people use VPN daily, tools that are especially useful for hiding the user’s real location and thus bypassing age controls. After the law came into force, VPN apps topped downloads in the British App Store, with at least one provider reporting an 1,800% increase in downloads. “It is likely that some of Pornhub’s ‘missing’ audience has not actually disappeared, but is being reclassified as non-British traffic,” explains Aras Nazarovas, cybersecurity researcher at Cybernews. cunequal compliance. Alex Kekesi, director of Aylo, parent company of Pornhub, explains BBC that the new rules are “unenforceable” and that many platforms benefit from ignoring them. It notes that Ofcom faces an “insurmountable task” trying to enforce the rules on some 240,000 adult platforms, visited by eight million users a month in the UK, while the regulator has only taken action against fewer than 70 sites for non-compliance. Kekesi assures that there are sites whose traffic “has grown exponentially” due to not complying with age verification, and has expressed concern about the content of some of these platforms, mentioning one that seemed to encourage searching for content with minors. Aylo affirms have shared information about these sites with Ofcom. The defense of the regulator. Ofcom defend that prioritizes the investigation of sites according to their risk and number of users, and that the increase in traffic can be precisely one of the factors that triggers an investigation. The organism holds that the 10 most popular platforms already have verification systems in place, representing 25% of all visits to adult content from the United Kingdom. The regulator also insists that more than three-quarters of the daily traffic to the 100 most visited websites goes to sites with age verification. “Sites that do not comply and put minors at risk can expect to face enforcement action,” he said. declared Ofcom. The regulator has launched investigations against 62 services suspected of ignoring the law. The debate over where to check. Pornhub proposes that age verification be done at the device level instead of web by web, arguing that it would be more effective and better protect privacy. Kekesi, who has traveled to the United Kingdom to meet with Ofcom and government officials, stands out That the British country is an exception, since Pornhub has blocked access in other jurisdictions that required age verification, such as France, its second largest market. The difference is that the United Kingdom allows sites to offer various verification methods, including email checks that do not require biometrics. However, experts such as Chelsea Jarvie, a cybersecurity researcher at the University of Strathclyde, they explain to the BBC that “for someone to be truly safe online we need different layers of controls throughout their browsing,” noting that no single approach is a “silver bullet.” The position of the British government. The authorities they have defended the regulator’s actions and have reaffirmed that protecting minors online is a “top priority” for ministers. “Where evidence shows that greater intervention is needed to protect minors, we will not hesitate to act,” the executive states. Ofcom affirms that the new law is fulfilling its primary purpose of preventing children from being able to “easily stumble upon pornography without searching for it.” “Our new rules end the era of an age-blind internet, when many sites and apps did not carry out any meaningful check to see if minors were using their services,” the regulator says. In Xataka | We already know how to retrieve the exact prompts that people use in AI models. It’s terrifying news

We have been thinking for years that, after the midlife crisis, old age is synonymous with happiness. This researcher thinks it’s a hoax

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We are happy during adolescence and late youth, but as the years go by we become increasingly sadder, more unhappy, more miserable. At some point, in our late 40s to early 50s, we hit rock bottom. And once there everything tends to improve. “It’s statistics,” we said. What we did not suspect was that the statistics could be ‘trick’. Happiness is U-shaped. “Happiness is a slippery slope until we hit the bottom at some undetermined point in middle age. From there, it climbs back to the levels of youth.” That’s what I said a 2008 study than by Blanchflower and Oswald with data from more than half a million people. Over the following years ( here an example from 2017), studied in some detail how firm this U-shaped trend was; Everything seemed to indicate that this was the case. Until Fabian Kratz and Josef Brüdel from the Ludwig Maximalian University of Munich they realized of a small – possible – problem. Wonkblog A fundamental problem. What if happiness steadily decreases with age and what we see in the aggregate graphs is just a statistical effect? Kratz has been studying for years happiness and, as explained in New Scientistis increasingly convinced that the U simply does not exist. Reviewing the scientific literature, the authors found studies that justify a “stability“in happiness throughout the years; a”increase” or progressive descent; a inverted U; a U normal; and a curve like of waves (promotions, relegations). The problem is “that all studies on age and happiness have incurred biases that have distorted their results.” The other form of happiness. By correcting them, Fabian Kratz and Josef Brüdel came to the conclusion that it is true that happiness shows some stability around the last 50, but it does not rise at any time. Kratz and Brüderl (2021) But why? It is important to keep in mind that this work is essentially methodological. But Kratz’s central idea is that previous studies they didn’t realize that “after a certain age, happiness seems to increase only because unhappy people have already died.” The least happy people they tend to die before, which would cause an overrepresentation of the happiest at older ages (literally, as said our colleague Andrés Mohorte, pure survivor bias). According to this theory, “that old popular story” through which retirement would open a window towards a fuller and more satisfying life is just that, a story: a lie. Or, perhaps, a strategy. Because, in short, “there is a lot of evidence about how humans experience a bassoon psychological in middle age” (Blanchflower and Oswald, 2007; Steptoe, Deaton and Stone, 2015; Graham and Pettinato, 2002), but there is very little about the relationship between that downturn – that unhappiness – and quality of life. As we said quite a few years ago“we’re about to see what happens to the millennials when they become unhappy” and maybe that is behind a part generational battles. But facing the future with the certainty that things are going to improve is not the same as facing the future with the certainty that things are going to get worse. The science of happiness has never been so depressing. Image | Garloncio In Xataka | If the question is “where is the secret to happiness,” an expert believes it is hidden in these 15 statements

It was hired by Spacex at age 14. Now, with 16, the young genius has turned his back on Elon Musk to go to Wall Street

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His history turned the world. Kairan Quazi graduated at the University of Santa Clara with 14 years. Almost immediately, He was signed as Spacex software engineer. Now, the young prodigy has abandoned Elon Musk’s space company to work in finance. The youngest employee of Spacex. He was not a fellow they sent for cafes. For two years, Kairan was one of Starlink engineers, the Spacex satellite Internet network. His work was critical: he designed the software that determines where the satellites point their beams to offer a stable connection. “I had a very broad field of work and a lot of responsibility, especially for a junior engineer,” Count the boy to Business Insider. Spacex expected him to lead projects from beginning to end: develop ideas, present them to other engineers and address, implement them and supervise the deployments. With 16 years, I needed a change. After two years at the aerospace avant -garde, Kairan Quazi felt prepared to “assume new challenges and expand their skills” in a different high performance environment. The young prodigy received offers from the most leading artificial intelligence laboratories, but it was a proposal of Citadel Securities, a trading giant, which finally convinced him to leave Spacex. Now work as quant unaveloper developing financial models. Quants, the elite of programming. The decision to change rockets for financial algorithms is not accidental. For the best mathematicians and software engineers, only artificial intelligence competes in attractiveness with the world of finance specialized in quantitative analysis. With millionaire wages, the Quants sector combines the complexity and intellectual challenge of other sectors with a much faster rhythm, measurable in days, not in months as in many research environments. In algorithmic trading, an idea is tested, implemented and gives results (for better or worse) in a matter of hours. For the rest, a teenager. Kairan valued that Citadel Securities did not take into account his age or his years of experience when offering opportunities. But sometimes he has to remember that he is a teenager. During his stage in Spacex, his mother had to take him to work every day because, with 14 years, he had no driving license. The episode in which LinkedIn erased the account for not having fulfilled the minimum age of 16. From Silicon Valley to Wall Street. Kairan was born in the San Francisco Bay area and He began his university studies with nine years. After his early entry into the working world, he now moves to Manhattan, where he will live 10 minutes walk from the office. This Bangladesí-American, fond of reading, video games, escalation and piano, lands in a city that already knows for its family roots in Queens. Wall Street will mark a new chapter for a young man who seems to have no limits. Image | Scu In Xataka | What Spacex has achieved with Starship is incredible. The only problem is that he has done it at the expense of the health of his employees

Europe wants users to verify their age to navigate the Internet. Google does not need it: you can estimate it with AI

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In February Google advertisement They were going to start starting an experimental system based on AI and automatic learning (Machine Learning) for Estimate the age of users of its services. That technology, initially thought to avoid access to adult content on YouTube, will now serve much more, although for now it will be restricted to the United States. Automated restrictions. If Google detects that a user is under 18 in the US, it will apply the same restrictions that it applies when users are proactively identified as minors – for example, when creating Gmail accounts. Thus, it will enable reminders to go to sleep on YouTube, it will limit content recommendations and disable both personalized advertising and access to Adult applications in Play Store. What happens if AI is wrong. If Google’s system incorrectly estimates that a user is under 18, said user will be able to send a photo of his identity card (in the US, that of driving usually), of a credit card or even a selfie. First, that Google ends up having a photo of those documents It is quite disturbing. Second, the selfie option is especially surprising, because a priori might not be enough to verify that someone is not a minor. Remembering How-Ord.net. Microsoft a decade ago launched an AI experiment according to which a user could upload a photo of one or more people, and the service He tried to guess the age of those people. The tool quickly went viral, but it was also controversial because of its possible impact on privacy. A study Of 2022 he revealed that various systems of this type were quite precise when guessing age in young people, but not so much in older people. Companies specialized in this area as Yoti explain that The margin of error is already reducedand its system has an average 1.3 -year error in young people between 13 and 17 years old. How to estimate the google age. Google’s age estimation model will use the existing data of its users, including the websites they visit, what type of videos do they see on YouTube or how long their accounts have had. What about privacy. According to Google, this approach “does not imply the collection of additional data”, but of all that information that you already have thanks to the profiles that users use to access their services. They also ensure that they will not share that estimate with apps or websites. Goal already implemented A similar system on Instagram months ago. The age verification fever. The movements in this regard are increasingly striking. Before the excuse for companies and governments to spy on us and knew more about us was the terrorist threat. Now it is that minors They can access adult content. There is a unique fever for developing age verification systems everywhere, and we are seeing it especially in Europe … and the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom teaches us how the future can be. One of the first countries to move in this area is the United Kingdom, which these days these days has activated its regulation so that minors cannot access adult content. The age verification systems must be present in all types of platforms, something that has been especially controversial there and that has generated a surprising (or perhaps not so much) Collateral effect: British users They have begun to subscribe in mass to VPN services to avoid having to pass those age verification controls. The EU wants its own “pajporte”. The controversy introduction of the Digital portfolio beta In Spain —Popularly known as “Pajortport” – is one of the great steps that EU member countries are facing the future European digital identity. Among the options that will enable this mobile application will be to verify the age of the users, and in fact the Spanish initiative is serving as inspiration For a European system. Said system, yes, is not exempt from controversy. It remains to be seen if the Google system is really effective, and if it is, how its deployment progresses and what impact that has on the intentions of various countries to control the age of users. In Xataka | Allowing an app to “all photos” of our gallery looks like the most harmless action in the world. It is not at all

The age verification to see porn starts in the United Kingdom. The question is how

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There was a time when the user only had to click on the “I am older than 18 years” button to access any porn page without problems. It is a measure whose effectiveness could easily put into question and that, from today, is the thing of the past, At least in the United Kingdom. Because from today, July 25, all websites that house pornographic content will have to implement “strict age controls.” And no, the United Kingdom does not seem willing to walk with little girls. Eh, kid, how old are you? According to exposes OFCOM (the Regulatory Agency for the United Kingdom Communications Services), “Until now it has been too easy for children to see harmful content”, including pornography. According to the agency, 8% of children between eight and 14 access this type of websites at least once a month, although more striking it turns out that 3% of children between eight and nine years old do. To stop this situation, the United Kingdom approved in 2023 the Online Safety Acta set of laws that “imposes a series of new obligations on social media companies and search services, making them more responsible for the safety of their users on their platforms.” Among them, indeed, age verification. Pornhub age verification systems, XVIDEOS, XNXX and Stripchat | Image: Xataka As? Ofcom ensures that their function is not to prevent adults from accessing legal pornography, but preventing minors from doing so. To do this, platforms and apps will have to have an age verification process that is “technically precise, solid, reliable and fair.” What methods exactly? Ofcom proposes seven: Estimation of the facial age: The user shows his face in a photo or video and is analyzed to estimate age. Banking verification: The verification service accesses the bank information and confirms whether the owner of the account is of legal age Digital Identity Services: In the European Union it would be, for example, Eid. Credit card verification: since only of legal age can have a credit card. Estimation based on the age of an email: The user provides an email and the technology analyzes the online services in which it has been used, as banks or public service providers, to estimate age. Age verification through the network operator: The verification system proves that there are no age filters applied to the mobile phone. Comparison of identity documents with photography: A photo of an official document and a normal photo are uploaded and compared to verify the age. Needless to say, companies will not only have to implement these systems, but to take action on the matter in the event that users try to skip them. One of the reasonable doubts can be the use of a VPN To access from another country. Using VPNS is not illegal and, therefore, remains in the hands of parents or guardians control the use that minors can make of them. It is undoubtedly the weak point of the system. The sanctions. In the event that a platform does not implement the required measures, ofcom can impose sanctions of up to 18 million pounds or 10% of total revenues worldwide, which is greater. Moreover, in certain cases, ofcom can ask a court to impose sanctions through third parties AKA request that a telecommunications operator block or restrict access to the web. The challenge is on social platforms, which will also have to implement the necessary measures to avoid access to harmful content Harmful content. Avoid access to porn, yes, but also to the harmful content such as related to eating disorders, suicide or self -inflicted damage. That content is not on the porn websites, but It can be found on much more mundane platforms such as WhatsApp, Discord, Reddit, Instagram, Tiktok, X, Facebook or YouTube. These platforms will also have to implement the corresponding measures, which is a capital challenge whose tour is still to be seen. Among the platforms that have already taken measures are Pornhubother minor pornographic sites, Bluesky, Discord, Grindr, Reddit and X. Ofcom is aware that social networks are an important gateway to porn and He thinks that “algorithms must be controlled and configured for children, so that the most harmful material is blocked.” This is what, from now on, you will see all British users by accessing Pornhub | Image: Xataka Therefore, from the agency they have launched a review program on Facebook, Instagram, Roblox, Snapchat, Tiktok and YouTube. Through this program, ofcom analyzes “if they have effective means to know who their children’s users are; how to identify their content moderation tools the types of harmful content for children; the effectiveness with which they have configured their algorithms to block the most harmful content in the feeds of children; and how they have prevented children from being contacted by unknown adults.” A global trend. Attempts to limit access to porn by minors are not new. They have centuries among usin fact, but in recent years they have intensified. The clearest example has it on our own borders with the Beta Digital Portfolio (better known as “pajorto”) and with the European proposal Framed in eidas2. Cover image | Xataka In Xataka | France is the most radical country against technology among children. And now it plans something extreme: prohibit social networks

The strange buzzing that you can only listen to at an age. The frequency that Japan, the US and Europe uses against young people

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In 2009 IHe listened to listen for the first time in the streets of Tokyo. For years, the Kitikahama Parkin the district of Adachi, he had been recurring white of acts of vandalism, especially in public facilities such as bathrooms and urban furniture. Damage, mainly attributed to groups of adolescents who frequent the area at night, had meant a significant cost for local authorities. And since then, a Imperceptible noise For much of the population has been recurring. A sound that has its origin in Europe. The mosquito. Years before, in 2005, the New York Times spoke of the arrival of an invention to the United Kingdom. What began as a child auditory discomfort was transformed years later into an unusual solution for a persistent urban problem. Howard Stapletona British engineer, he remembered how, at age 12, upon entering a factory with his father, he was forced to go out immediately by an unbearable sound that adults did not even perceive. Decades later, that experience led him to create The mosquitoa device that emits a high frequency buzz perceptible only by young ears (mainly around twenty) and practically inaudible for those who have passed thirty. Its purpose was as direct as controversial: drill teenagers that congregate in noisy in front of stores, generating discomfort, intimidations and even episodes of theft and violence, without the need for direct confrontation. Personal idea to experiment. The first real mosquito test took place in Barry in 2005, a town in southern Wales, in front of a spar grocery storemanaged by Robert Gough and his family. Before the installation, the place suffered daily La presence of adolescents They smoked, drank, insulted customers and broke into the establishment. Gough had considered resorting to classical music to large volume, but never implemented it. It was Stapleton who offered to install the device testing. In a matter of little time, the usual congregation of adolescents disappeared. Some tried to resist, entering the store with their fingers in their ears and asking to turn off the buzz. Gough, ingenious, told them that the device was to scare birds due to avian flu. The result was a Radical transformation: Before conflicting teenagers now entered, bought, and they went without causing problems. Mosquito installation in a Philadelphia store It hurts, but it doesn’t exhaust. We talk about a device that emits a kind of chirp pulsating by Above 17 kilohertzup to 75/80 decibels, comparable to a noise of tinnitusIt is not painful, but very irritating. Stapleton said he tested different frequencies with the help of his own children to formula That “I did not harm, but it would bother enough to want to leave.” His intention was never punishing, but Simply dissuadecausing an discomfort that pushes the adolescent to retire on its own. While some adults can still perceive the sound, the device is designed thinking about behavior patterns rather than strict age ranges: hardly a 30 -year -old person is around the entrance of a store for hours. Professor Andrew King, an expert in neurophysiology at Oxford University, I recognized years ago To the Times that although the hearing of high frequencies decreases with age, that loss is gradual and, therefore, some adults could also hear it. Stapleton will consider it irrelevant: “The mosquito is not for them.” Cross borders. After its appearance, the mosquito It generated great interest. Stores, railway deposits, shopping centers and British local authorities They requested units. Stapleton, at that time, already contemplated more powerful versions Activable by panic button, designed to repel crowds that enter into mass to steal, which in the United Kingdom is known as Steaming. Its logic It was simple: “It is difficult to steal with the fingers in the ears.” From Europe and the US to Japan. Four years after the invention was established in different cities from the United Kingdom, then Europe, and finally the United Statesthe mosquito made the leap to Japan. Given the numerous acts of vandalism, the district of Adachi decided to resort to the controversial technological solution, but growing in popularity. Pilot test In Japan, some shops and They had implemented Previously after receiving complaints about garbage, noise and concentration of youth groups, but 2009 was the first time it was installed in A public park. The Adachi administration, which had hired the device to the Melc Co LTD company, based in Chiyoda, installed it in the area as part of an essay that would last until March 2010. Background: Vandalism costs in the 470 parks and public areas of Adachi in the previous years had overcome the 3 million yenso any solution that could reduce non -invasive figures represented an attractive option. According to Melc representatives, the objective It was clear: generate an environment uncomfortable for offenders without altering the tranquility of the rest of citizens or provoking neighborhood complaints. And in the trains. Although today the number of facilities of this type is unknown in Japan, in the social networks They abound videos and comments of young people alluding To this type of sounds. Bloomberg had that even a version of the mosquito has also been installed in trains stations. In many of them ultrasonic devices had been placed that emitted a high frequency sound only noticeable for children under 25 years. The devices, designed to discourage merodeus without confrontations, caused obvious reactions In students: discomfort faces, accelerated steps and complaints, without most knew where the sound comes from. Meanwhile, older adults walk imperturbable, unable to hear the signal. The technology, originally from Wales, had found in Japan its most systematic and culturally accepted use. Between defense and stigma. Counted in a long NPR interview to Stapleton that the mosquito has generated a debate about the Technological intervention limits in public space. While some celebrate their ability to restore tranquility in commercial and school areas without violence or clashes, others consider that their indiscriminate use It can be equivalent to criminalizing the default youth. Stapleton responded That the true enemy is not adolescence, … Read more

The weird event that humanity has witnessed on average, each billion the age of the universe

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Year 2019. In an underground laboratory, A kilometer and a half under the Masso del Gran Sasso in Italya dark matter detector witnessed something extraordinary: the radioactive disintegration of an atom of Xenon-124. It is the slowest process (And therefore, more rare) Never registered. They touched the cosmic lottery. The Xenon-124 has a semi-width of 1.8 × 10²² years. That is 18 followed by 21 zeros: 18,000 trillions of years. To put it into perspective, the universe has “just” about 13.8 billion years, so that the process that Italian scientists could observe in 2019 is a billion times more durable than the universe’s own age, as The researchers described it In Nature magazine. A little context. The “semi -experience” is a statistical measure similar to half -life, but specifically defines the semi -dear period of a radioactive substance. Uranium-238, for example, has a semi-width of 4.5 billion years. In the case at hand, the semi-experience tells us how long it has to pass so that half of a very large group of Xenon-124 atoms disintegrate and become another element, the teluro-124. For an individual atom, its disintegration is a purely random event. A concrete atom could disintegrate in the next second or be stable for a much greater time than its semi -experience. For a group of atoms, the semi -experience is a very reliable prediction of its collective behavior. If you had a container with a large number of Xenon-124 atoms, you would have to wait 18,000 trillions of years for half of the atoms to transform. How did they do it? With a very large container, which contained 3.2 tons of ultra -overthopuro liquid xenon. We refer to Xenon1t experiment of the National Laboratory of Gran Sassoin the center of Italy. A dark matter detector designed for the direct search for hypothetical Massive weak interaction particles (WIMP). The detector was designed with extreme sensitivity and built under a mountain to isolate it from cosmic radiation. But what he captured was not dark matter, but the whisper of an atom of Xenón-124 decomposing; transforming into Teluro-124. The weirdest event ever witnessed. It is not a hyperbole. It really was a milestone of experimental physics that we should not have seen even in a billion lives of the universe. But although the probability that an atom of Xenon-124 disintegrate in a year is practically nil, the detector contained almost 10,000 billion xenon atoms in the two tons of volume that were analyzed. With such an overwhelming amount of “lottery tickets”, the probability that at least one disintegrate during the observation period increased dramatically. During the 177 days of data collection, the team observed not one, but a total of 126 events that could later confirm how the decay of the Xenon-124, a type of radioactive disintegration allowed by the standard model of particle physics, but practically undetectable. What did they see. An atom of Xenón-124 disintegrates when its nucleus simultaneously captures two electrons of the innermost layers. This causes two protons to become neutrons, transforming the atom into Teluro-124. But the energy released is carried by two neutrinos, which escape without being detected. What the Xenon1T photomultipliers detected up to 126 times was the X-ray waterfall and omer electrons that occur when the electrons of the upper layers of the Xenon-124 fall to fill the gaps that have left the two captured electrons. This is the energy firm, the “flash” that betrays the weird event of the universe. Has it served for something? For more than it seems. Although there was no luck with dark matter, the detection showed that Xenon1T can capture an incredibly weak and rare signals, validating its design. But the measurement also provided experimental data to test and improve the theoretical models that describe the structure and stability of atomic nuclei. This observation is a general trial for an even more ambitious goal: the search for double electron catches without neutrinos. If this hypothetical process was detected, it would demonstrate that Neutrinos are their own antiparticles (What is known as Majorana particles). This would explain why the universe is made of matter and not of antimatter. Image | Lngs In Xataka | When no result is a good result: Xenon’s story and the search for dark matter

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