baby

‘Baby Shark’ is the most successful song in YouTube history. It is also the least profitable of all

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It has already gone somewhat out of fashion, at least in terms of omnipresence at children’s parties, birthdays and meetings with children, but in those transition years between the birth of YouTube and the current flood of children’s content generated by AIs and insane algorithms on the platform, ‘Baby Shark‘It was a monumental success. One that, however, did not make its creators millionaires, unlike what many of us came to believe. Baby Shark, the legend. The infectious original song, since its publication on YouTube in June 2016, has accumulated an average of more than 4.7 million daily views. Now it’s at 16.4 billion views. Success transcends borders: available in 25 different languages, the United States leads as the main market in number of views, while Brazil holds the record in number of “likes.” In 2020, it dethroned ‘Despacito’ as the most viewed content on YouTube. And the distance continues to grow: ‘Despacito’ remains at 8.86 billion views, and ‘Baby Shark’ already doubles it. As The Wall Street Journal saysto get an idea of ​​the dimensions of the achievement: the amount is approximately equivalent to the sum of Taylor Swift’s ten most popular music videos on the platform. There is no money. Despite the records, Pinkfong, the South Korean company that created the song, barely generated $67 million in 2024. The reason: child privacy restrictions drastically limit its advertising monetization. In September 2019, Google agreed to pay 170 million dollars to resolve accusations of systematic violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The US Federal Trade Commission determined that the platform had collected cookies and IP addresses from children under 13 years of age to serve you personalized advertisingwithout obtaining parental consent. The sanction (136 million for the FTC, 34 million for the State of New York) represented the largest fine imposed until then for violations of this type. The investigation revealed that YouTube advertised itself among toy brands such as Mattel and Hasbro as a leader in reaching children ages 6 to 11. Changes for Baby Shark. This fine led to YouTube banning personalized advertising in “Made for Kids” content as of January 2020. Additionally, it disabled features such as comments, subscription notifications, playlists, and live chat. The economic impact was notable: Children’s content creators reduced their production by 18% and views fell by 20%. Profits plummeted between 60% and 90% compared to content with personalized advertising. Others affected. Other big names in children’s entertainment also saw stars with YouTube’s decision. Cocomelonwhich has two of the ten videos confirmed significant revenue losses after the removal of personalized advertising. Chris Williams, co-founder of pocket.watch (a digital studio specialized in children’s content), said that the main channels in the sector, such as the Indian ChuChu TV, had experienced drops between 50% and 60% in their advertising revenue since January 2020. To survive. Faced with monetization restrictions, Pinkfong has built a diversified business model where YouTube advertising represents only a fraction of its revenue. According to data from the first half of 202568% of its sales now come from content distribution (YouTube, but also Netflix and live shows), while merchandising contributes 15%, licensing 10%, and the remaining segment corresponds to video games and other digital products. This allowed the company to achieve a profit of approximately 13 million dollars in 2024 on total revenues of 67 million. Of course, its CEO has already spoken of integrating artificial intelligence and data analysis in content creation. No more viral bombs. In Xataka | Baby Shark (doo doo doo doo doo doo): when a children’s song also sweeps the stock market

In Castilla y León, a baby of an eagle that became extinct in the 19th century has been born. What is not clear is that it is good news

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The skies of Castilla y León have left a historical imagesomething that had not been seen for a long time in our country: a native baby eagle flying over the territory. The specimen of this bird of prey was born on Spanish soil a few months ago, early mayand has already taken flight, as has just been said reveal The Confidential. Something like this hadn’t happened in a long time. That a species that was supposed to be extinct in the Iberian Peninsula since the 19th century manages to recover ground is usually positive news, but in the case of the eagle it comes clouded by something else: controversy. There are those who believe that its reintroduction in Spain is a “historical milestone”. And who thinks it is a blunder. First of all, what is the eagle? A bird of prey that stands out for its enormous size. With its wings extended it can reach 2.4m wingspan and usually measures between 80 and 90 cm long. His name appeared in a list published years ago by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO) with extinct species susceptible to be reintroduced. After all, there are those who consider that the eagle, which continues to live in Scandinavian countries, it disappeared from the peninsula among the 19th and 20th centuries due to the degradation of their environment. How did you return to Spain? Thanks to Proyecto Pigargo, a plan released in 2021 with the approval of the Principality of Asturias, the Cantabrian Government and above all the support of MITECO, which invested more than 300,000 euros in the recovery of the species. In August of that same year was announced the arrival of almost a dozen young specimens born in Norway that were introduced in Pimiango, in the municipality of Ribadedeva (Asturias). As time went by, more birds were released until add 25. Of them survived about 17almost all (12) paired. And have they bred yet? Yes. The news I advanced it on September 18 GREFA, the group that has promoted the reintroduction of the species on the peninsula. In a statement The group explains that the calf was born in May in the north of Castilla y León, in an area that had been identified as “optimal for the species”, although GREFA has not specified the exact location “to avoid any disturbance.” “The birth of the first European eagle chick in Spain represents a historic moment for nature conservation in our country,” celebrate the association before highlighting the collaboration of the Junta de Castilla y León and the “technical support” of both MITECO and agents of the autonomous community. Perfect, right? It depends on who you ask. If we listen GREFA is “a historic milestone for biodiversity in Spain and Europe”, the result of a well-studied plan, which accumulates hours of work and has achieved the support of IUCNthe International Union for Conservation of Nature. The group insists that it is the first breeding after “the extinction” of the species in Spain and highlights “the success” of having achieved a chick in a few years with 25 specimens released. “An exciting and motivating result that allows us to hope for more views next season,” celebrate. Don’t everyone think that way? No. The launch of the Pigargo Project may have generated expectations at the time, but it certainly did not achieve something equally or even more important: scientific consensus. Already in 2021 there were voices that warned that releasing copies in Spain meant “a bad idea”. In fact, that was the key message of an article published in The Conversation by three experts from the University of Oviedo in which they pointed out the weak points of the program and questioned whether the eagle is really a native and extinct species. The controversy escalated to such a point that the central government and the autonomies that had initially endorsed the project they decided to back out after just two years. What arguments do they use? GREFA recalls that the releases of eagles that began four years ago in Asturias had the endorsement of the IUCN and the species was included in the list of extinct fauna prepared with the endorsement of the committee of scientists that advises the ministry. Not only that. The group defends that the birth of the first baby in the wild in Castilla y León a few months ago proves the adaptation to the environment of a bird of prey that, argues“contributes to keeping under control” other species that can damage ecosystems, such as carp. “Thanks to its scavenging habits, the European sea eagle plays an important role as a ‘health police’, helping to control the spread of diseases by effectively removing animal corpses from the environment,” they point out from the entity. In fact, GREFA trusts that the birth of the first chick marks a turning point in the program and will allow it to recover the institutional support that it has been losing in recent years. “We hope that this historic event encourages strengthening or resuming support for the project, especially in the case of the Principality of Asturias and the Government of Cantabria, whose initial collaboration was fundamental although they later withdrew it,” Ernesto Álvarez slidesits president. And what do the critics say? They go to the root of the approach and question its most basic premise: that it has really been proven that the eagle is a species native to the peninsula. “To consider a species as extinct, the evidence must be irrefutable. In the case of the eagle that does not happen. The documentation that has been used for its classification as an extinct species is reduced to some reports on archaeological remains, several citations of solitary specimens and dubious signs of breeding,” he points out. the article published in The Conversation. One of them, Germán Orizaola, Ramón y Cajal researcher in Zoology, warned in 2023 in statements to The Country of the risk that the initiative may pose … Read more

Ukraine has a weapon against Russia that we had only seen in James Bond. Her name is Sea Baby and when she finishes her work she blows herself up.

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At the end of September Ukraine sent a message: It was already the largest drone laboratory on the planet, but with its latest 12-meter “monster” it wanted to do the same under the sea. This is how the family of Toloka underwater dronesa technological leap that redefined naval warfare in the Black Sea. That effort now has its continuation in a drone that until recently we had only seen in James Bond movies and the like. Technological evolution. Ukraine has taken its “Sea Baby” naval drones from being disposable explosive boats to becoming attack and multiple mission platforms capable of operating at more than 1,500 kilometers, transporting up to 2,000 kilos and mount heavy telecontrolled weaponry (multiple rocket launchers, stabilized turrets, secondary drone launch) while incorporating self-destruct systems to avoid capture and AI-assisted functions to reduce identification errors. This step not only adds firepower and range, but turns a low-cost means into a sustained system that can penetrate, hit, return and remain available (or self-destruct), something that repositions the naval drone from immediate consumption to renewable operating capital. The Black Sea. Successive waves of drones have forced Russia to withdraw most of its fleet from Sevastopol to Novorossiyska change in posture that does not respond to a specific defeat but to that persistent risk that makes it unfeasible to sustain an advanced presence without assuming continuous losses. The “Sea Baby” have been attributed by the SBU to eleven attacks against shipsas well as repeated blows against the Crimean bridge and other logistics facilities, producing a chain effect: Moscow has had to redirect its military transport to land and more distant ports, making each kilometer of support more expensive and reducing its ability to condition Ukrainian trade routes to Europe. Doctrinal change. What once required steel fleets, shipyards and squadrons can now be inflicted with platforms cheap, reproducible and guided at a distance, which modifies the unspoken rule that the maritime domain belongs to the one who owns tonnage: here control emanates from who can inflict repeated damage at a lower cost than that imposed on the defender. The Ukrainian case surpasses precedents such as the coastal missiles of the Lebanon in 2006 because it not only denies a coastline, but forces a structural reconfiguration of an entire squadron and its main base, demonstrating that an entire naval theater can be altered without having a conventional navy. Industry and allies. kyiv claims to produce around 4,000 naval drones and needing only half for his own defense, opening the door to sell the surplus to partner countries while NATO observes and adjusts doctrine after verifying that these systems have changed the cost/effect relationship at sea. Public financing via United24 and coordination with political and military command make the program an example of how a country at war can generate dual technology with external projection, replicating what happened with aerial UAVs: first combat effectiveness, then international adoption and doctrinal adjustment by third parties. Consequences and cycles. There is no doubt, offensive success is strong now defensive investment: floating barriers, sensors, redundant electronic warfare and point defense layers in ports and terminals to prevent innovation that has worked externally from reversing its own infrastructure. Russia tries to copy these platforms and use them againwhat chains a cycle of innovation in the face of interference that pushes both sides to adapt communications, navigation and mission architecture to overcome the electronic blockade. The result: a loop of accelerated evolution in which the advantage is no longer in possessing an isolated weapon, but in the ability to continually improve it before the opponent degrades its effect. Strategic conclusion. The Ukrainian naval drones have shown that sea power can be eroded without a conventional fleet through cheap mass, strategic reach and sustained pressure on valuable nodes, altering the adversary’s posture and reallocating its resources on the defensive. The displacement of the Russian fleet, the logistical impact and the international adoption as a reference point to a change of era: the sea ceases to be a domain secured by the capital spent on steel and becomes a space where the advantage belongs to whoever controls the marginal cost of the next impactnot the size of the hulls it anchors. Image | Security Service of Ukraine In Xataka | Ukraine cannot believe what it found inside Russia’s ballistic missiles: déjà vu In Xataka | After Cubans and North Koreans fighting alongside Russian troops, new guests have appeared in Ukraine: Chinese

Iceland’s public television did not broadcast on Thursdays. Since then the legend of a Thursday “baby boom” has circulated.

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For approximately twenty years, Iceland decided not to broadcast television on Thursdays. The reasons for this decision were varied, but they triggered a belief: the obligation not to watch television made many young people look for other entertainment. And they did it. And the birth rate skyrocketed. Today we delve into the history behind this decision and decide what is reality and what is urban legend. TV stories. Iceland did not have its own television channel until 1966with the creation of the state radio station RÚV. Until then, the only television available to some Icelanders was the one broadcast by the US military base in Keflavík, since 1955 and with an antenna only for soldiers, an invention soon imitated by Icelanders. When RÚV began broadcasting (after the controversial decision to leave Icelanders unable to receive the signal, which caused a tidal wave of complaints), it did so with a very restricted schedule. Initially, it only broadcast two days a week (and a few hours a day). As its programming expanded, a day without television was established: Thursday. Why wasn’t it broadcast on Thursdays? There were two reasons. The most well-known and romantic reason is that they wanted to promote social and family life. The government wanted Icelanders to dedicate a day to socializespend time with family, read or enjoy the outdoors instead of staying home in front of a screen. People were encouraged to participate in community activities, meet with neighbors and keep traditions alive. There was also some concern about foreign cultural influence (already present with the programming at the Keflavík military base) and it was felt that limiting national television hours could help protect Icelandic identity. A more practical reason. But there was another reason of a budgetary and personnel nature. RÚV, the state broadcaster, operated with a very limited budget and staff. Leave a day without broadcast (and also a whole month in julyuntil 1983) was a practical way to give a day off to its employees, many of whom multitasked to keep the channel running. Since the station had a monopoly, it could afford this luxury without losing audience, since there was no other option to watch on television. A summit ended the custom. The first interruption of the Thursday blackout occurred in October 1986, when RÚV broadcast on an exceptional basis on Thursday to cover the historic Reykjavík summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. The definitive change, of course, came with the appearance of competition: in 1986 a new private channel, Stöð 2, was launched, broadcasting seven days a week. Since October 1, 1987, RÚV also began broadcasting on Thursdays, ending this tradition of almost two decades. The myth of “Thursday babies.” The popular belief that this tradition increased the birth rate is actually a joke or myth that Icelanders who lived during that time tell themselves: by not having the distraction of television, couples spent more time together, which supposedly increased the probability of conceiving. And although it is a correlation that has remained in the popular imagination of Iceland, there is no scientific evidence to show that the birth rate in Iceland increased significantly on Thursdays, or nine months after Thursdays. But it says a lot about how entertainment and family life were conceived not so long ago. Photo of Cassie Mouth in Unsplash In Xataka | The story of the old television that left an entire Welsh town without internet at 7 in the morning

A factory in Ireland made a fortune selling baby formula to China. Until the Chinese stopped having children

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If China’s demographic crisis is not reversed, if the world’s factories shrink and nothing stops the bleeding, its decline will drag and have effects throughout the world: from cost increases in consumer goods (telephones, footwear, electric vehicles) to inflationary pressures due to lower manufacturing efficiency. As an example, a “button”: thousands of kilometers from China, an entire population is already suffering from the lack of babies in Beijing. In Ireland, no one imagined a situation like this. Industrial mirage. For years, the small Irish town of Askeatonin County Limerick, found his redemption in a factory that produced gold dust. It wasn’t a metaphor. Infant milk was produced on Nestlé production lines for the chinese marketa product so profitable that some workers nicknamed it “the white cocaine” of the town. Overnight, that business transformed a town forgotten by modernization into a prosperous enclave, where credit flowed easily and employment was synonymous with stability. But when the Swiss managers arrived two years ago with the closure announcementdisbelief took over everyone. Nobody could conceive that such a modern plant, the result of a million-dollar investment, would simply be closed. Rely on China. Nestlé attributed the decision to a macroeconomic reason: he birth rate crash in China. The number of births had fallen from 18 million in 2016 to just nine million in 2023, and demand for foreign infant formula was sinking. However, The New York Times said that among the 1,100 inhabitants of Askeaton the official version did not convince. There were those who suspected that the multinational was simply responding to a Chinese demand: to move production to Asian territory itself. The argument made sense. For years, Nestlé had closed markets in Europe and the Middle East to concentrate exclusively in China. “We put all our eggs in one basket.” remember the diary Oliver Scanlon, one of the veterans of the place. And although the business experienced its golden age with that turn, everyone understood too late what it meant: China was not only buying the product, it was also learning how to manufacture it. Silent learning. The workers recount how every year Chinese auditors arrived, curious to the extreme, writing down every technical detail of the industrial process. Sometimes they even visited neighboring farms, taking an interest in dairy production methods. “They came to learn,” counted rancher Tim Hanley. “They can produce everything, and their goal is self-sufficiency.” Ultimately, what happened at Askeaton was the consequence of a repeated pattern: the initial enthusiasm for the Chinese market ended with the transfer of knowledge and the relocation of production. In November 2023, just a month after announcing the Irish closure, Nestlé obtained authorization to open a twin plant in Suzhoueast of China. While justifying the closure due to the drop in birth rates, the company proclaimed that the Chinese market “continued to be the largest in the world by absolute number of newborns.” Jobless. The Times remembered that the closure of the plant has left a visible scar. The machines stopped last month and, unless someone purchases the facilities for the 22 million euros at which Nestlé has valued them, the doors will close permanently in March. Layoffs, severance packages and outplacement programs have not compensated for the sense of loss. The factory was the invisible engine that made local businesses run, from Seán Moran’s hardware store to the credit union, which for years granted loans with only a payroll as collateral. “It was a good salary and the town prospered,” admits Patrick Ranahan, head of the entity. “But we knew it could disappear from one day to the next.” From globalization to dependency. He Askeaton’s case It is an example of the vulnerability of local economies in the era of globalization. The sudden success, sustained by Chinese demand, masked the fragility of a model based on a single customer and a single market. What began as a story of international cooperation ended up being technology transfer disguised as prosperity. In the process, China not only bought the product, but also the knowledge, and when it was ready to replicate it, it simply cut the tie. For Askeaton, the “crown jewel” has become a symbol of a bitter lesson: in global commerce, the shine of success can fade as quickly as the foam on the powdered milk that fed them for half a century. Image | Nestle In Xataka | The great paradox of China’s demographic crisis: its origin is due to a policy that worked too well In Xataka | China knows that its population is going to collapse but it already has a long-term plan to solve it. Of course, thanks to AI

Speaking in English to a baby still in the womb seems like an absurd idea. Science has just discovered that it is effective

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We have long known that Babies recognize their mother’s voice from the womb and who show a preference for their mother tongue a few days after birth. However, now we know a little more thanks to studies neuroimaging studies that have confirmed something we intuited: the brain of a newborn is prepared to recognize foreign languages ​​if it has heard them in the womb during gestation. The experiment. To reach this conclusion, a team from Sainte-Justine University Hospital in Montreal recruited 60 pregnant women from monolingual French-speaking families. From here they did two different phases: prenatal exposure and brain analysis after birth. Prenatal exposure. In this case, a group of 39 fetuses was selected and exposed to recordings of a story during the last month of gestation. To do so, the mothers placed headphones on their abdomen so that the fetus could hear the story in its native language, which was French, and also in a foreign language, which was German or Hebrew. These languages ​​were chosen specifically because their rhythmic and phonological properties are very different from those of French. The second group, of 21 fetuses, acted as a control and did not receive any experimental exposure, hearing only the French of their natural environment, which is what happens in any type of normal pregnancy. Brain analysis. A few days after birth (between 10 and 78 hours), the brain activity of all these newborns began to be monitored while they listened to the same story in three languages: French, German and Hebrew. To do this, they used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), a non-invasive technique that measures changes in blood oxygenation in the brain to see which areas are activated. The results. They were certainly surprising. The brains of newborns reacted almost identically to their native language and the foreign language they had been hearing in the womb. In both cases, an increase in activity was observed in the temporal regions of the left hemisphere, which is a key area for language processing with Broca’s area, among others. In contrast, when these babies heard the completely new foreign language (the one they had not heard before), their brains showed a different response, with less activation in language areas and more activity in general sound-processing regions. The conclusion. This finding suggests that the fetal brain not only hears, but “learns” to recognize the patterns of a language, which causes a specialization of the left hemisphere. One of the authors point specifically that “Our results provide evidence that even brief prenatal exposure to a foreign language could make it recognizable to neonates, leading to brain activation patterns similar to those observed when listening to their native language.” Anne Gallagher, a neuropsychologist at the University of Montreal and lead author of the study, qualifies the concept of “learning”: “We cannot say that babies ‘learn’ a language prenatally. What we can say is that neonates develop a familiarity with one or more languages ​​during gestation, which shapes their brain networks at birth.” Understand development. These findings reinforce the idea that a newborn’s brain is not a ‘blank slate’, but that the gestational environment contributes a lot to its brain development, since its brain processing begins here to be shaped before birth. However, experts caution that this study should not be interpreted as a guide for parents to expose their babies to multiple languages ​​in order to make them more intelligent or multilingual. But it does give us an idea of ​​how this important characteristic is developing. Limitations. The study, while revealing, also has its limitations, such as a relatively small sample size that prevented, for example, directly comparing responses to German versus Hebrew. Still, it shows that even brief, repeated exposure to linguistic stimuli can modify a newborn’s language brain networks, laying the foundation for future development. Images | Volodymyr Hryshchenko In Xataka | When the first meal is not porridge, but a chop: the rise of carnivorous babies

In the Middle Ages the Child Jesus was represented as an “old baby.” The reason still fascinates experts

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It is not necessary to be a scholar, or have an eye trained in the study of medieval art. Soon you are familiar with the Christian iconography of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries or have seen any of the Religious altarpieces That they painted themselves in Europe at that time, you are likely to ask yourself a question: why do they show the Child Jesus like this, ugly, aged, touched? And ugly, aged and touched are three adjectives that probably fall short for not a few of the medieval portraits that represent Jesus in their early years, in Mary’s arms. Where there should be a child in his most tender childhood we find a creature with wrinkles, incipient baldness and the expression of a philosopher submerged in brave reflections. The most curious thing is that they are not due to lack of expertise of artists. They are anything but childish because that is what was sought. Portraits of the child? Jesus. There are examples to bore. Paolo Veneziano, Duccio di Buoninasegna, Massaccio, Giotto… If something has in common their representations of the Virgin and the Child Jesus, beyond having painted them between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries and always represent the same religious characters, it is how they did. They were supposed to represent a young woman with her newborn son or only a few years, but what came out of her brushes was very different: “old children”, creatures not very healthy who seem sexagenarians about to sign retirement. Instead of angelic faces, they created incipient baldness heads, wrinkles and expressions that evoke anything except the idea of childhood. And to show a button. Or several. Arrives with a look at the child Jesus of ‘Crevole Madonna’ (1283-1284), by Duccio Di Buoninasegna who looks at you from the right side of the cover image. Or this other painted by Giotto At the beginning of the fourteenth century and observes you with an equally intense expression under these lines. Detail of ‘Maestà di Ognissanti’, by Giotto, the beginning of the fourteenth century. Lack of expertise? That is the first explanation that comes to mind: if they painted the Child Jesus of that guise, maybe it was because of the ability of those who handled the brushes. The reality is much more complex … and fascinating. “These ugly babies were very intentional,” Phil Edwards explains in Vox Magazine. They were more or less skilled, when drawing the face of Jesus the painters were guided by conventions, an assimilated and shared code and a cultural background that in this case affected both the idea of childhood and especially that of the Child Jesus himself. In fact, one of the keys that help us understand these pieces is that medieval artists did not seek to faithfully capture reality. If their babies are not realistic it is because they were not interested in realism. The message matters, not fidelity. “The strangeness we see in medieval art is due to the lack of interest in naturalism. They were more inclined to expressionist conventions,” Matthew Averett recountsProfessor at Creighton. Each painter handled their own brushes and paintings, true; But in a context that influenced his works. They were the creators, but they resorted to a language and clear conventions. “The idea of artistic freedom to represent these people as one would have been new,” he adds. “Art was not interested in naturalism, but rather in the theological expression,” emphasize in The conversation Angela McCarthy, from the University of Notre Dame Australia. And that does not notice only in the aspect with which the Child Jesus was portrayed. In Western art theology also influenced COMPOSITIONS: Jesus usually appears sitting with a mature or diaper posture. “The latter was an attempt to represent the biblical references to a child wrapped in diapers or the shroud placed on Jesus after his death,” Apostille McCarthy. Detail of a representation of the Child Jesus of the mid -14th century of Paolo Veneziano. Do not say a child, give better “homunculus”. If there is a word that helps to understand those disturbing “children-man” who rest in Maria’s lap and look at us from the medieval tables is that: homunculus, which means “Little Man”. The Child Jesus was after all a child, but not anyone. McCarthy recalls that his artistic representation with Mary began to expand after the Council of Ephesus, in 431, and not much later, in 451, another council was held in Chalcedon that would be key to the representations of the Child Jesus: “Part of the interpretation that the Church made of the Council was that Jesus was fully human and divine. Some theologians interpreted that this meant that this meant that this was fully formed. with knowledge of his divinity “, reveals The expert of the University of Notre Dame Australia: “This was difficult to represent in art and hence the name of the child.” “Perfectly formed”. What we observe in the Middle Ages altarpieces is therefore not a simple (more or less realistic) representation of a child with his mother. No. The message is more complex … and rich. It shows us an idea of the Jesus Child influenced by Christian theology and certain conventions. And in which that concept, the “homunculus.” “There is the idea that Jesus was perfectly formed and unchanged”, Remember Averett“And if you combine that with Byzantine painting, it became a standard form to represent Jesus. In some of these images it seems that he had baldness with an adult pattern.” Good example is the child who observes you from the left side of the composition that opens this report. The image is taken from ‘Madonna Della Pace’an icon that, as they remember from the Santi Giovanni E Paolo Basilica, was donated to the Dominicans by a senator who took him from Constantinople in the mid -fourteenth. “In the eastern orthodox tradition, from approximately the sixth century to the present, the child Jesus looks like a little man,” McCarthy abounds. Detail of ‘Virgen … Read more

He wants to launch a ‘baby grok’

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Grok is having a movidito summer. We already talk to you that X’s AI began to hallucinate to the point of believing that it was Musk itselfbut this was just the beginning. A few days later the level rose And, when asked who would be the best person to deal with “Anti-Blanco hatred” he replied: “Adolf Hitler, no doubt.” In the midst of this controversy, Elon Musk has not occurred anything other than announcing the creation of a Grok for Children. He called it ‘Baby Grok’. Bad moment. The news comes through the X account of the Musk itself, where it has reported that XAI will create an app dedicated to children’s content. We still do not know if it will be a chatbot or other type of app, but among the answers they are already seen Some criticism They say that “children do not need ‘Ai Slop‘, but go out to play. “What is clear is that the time chosen to announce it is a quite delicate for Grok, especially if we add children in the equation. Click on the image to access the publication in X. The controversy. Grok is known for having a more thug tone than other chatbots, but in recent weeks it has been especially incendiary. First he started talking about a Anti-Blancos conspiracy in Hollywood And published anti -Semitic cut messages. Far from stopping, in the following days Grok came to praise Hitler in several messages And he continued with more anti -Semitic messages like the one who said that people with Jewish surnames “are left -wing radical activists every damn time.” Apologies. X users criticized Grok’s behavior and the official response soon appeared. Grok’s official account in X confirmed that They were working to eliminate inappropriate messages And shortly after they published another Message apologizing “Because of the horrible behavior that many have experienced,” the chatbot deactivates for 16 hours. The fault is not from Grok. The problem would be a part of the obsolete code of the last update and the “abusive use” that some users were making the chatbot. This was his explanation: They directed the functionality @Grok to ignore their fundamental values in certain circumstances so that the answer was attractive to the user. Specifically, some user questions may end up generating answers with unusual or controversial opinions to attract the user. Grok educate your children. It is no secret that Grok is closely linked to Elon Musk in terms of ideological vision. Musk announced it as The first politically incorrect thing that always tells the truthalthough later it was learned that they had trained her to Avoid talking badly about Musk and Donald Trump. We will have to wait to see what he has thought for ‘Baby Grok’, but to judge the trajectory of the adult Grok, surely he leaves anyone indifferent. Image | DVIDS | XAI In Xataka | Elon Musk wants you to pay for your AI when you can use others for free. More for ideology than for any other reason

Disney needs to solve the greatest crisis in the story of ‘Star Wars’. And Baby Yoda has been clinging to get it

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In Disney they are the first to know that ‘Star Wars‘A considerable identity crisis is going through: the projects that have emerged after the trilogy produced by JJ Abrams have been falling one after another, and since 2019 the franchise does not premiere a new film. However, The Star Wars Celebration That this weekend in Japan has been held, two years after the 2023 in London, has fought to fall that feeling, and has presented a few projects that have new roads of exploitation of the franchise. More than a celebration, a plan has been presented in Japan. What has been presented. The event has served to formalize the return of ‘Star Wars’ to the big screen: the main dishes are, on the one hand,’The Mandalorian and Grogu ‘which will continue the three seasons of the series starring Pedro Pascal and his adorable adopted son Grogu. He adds’ Starfighter ‘, self -clusive film directed by Shawn Levy (‘Deadpool and Wolverine‘) and starring Ryan Gosling. New seasons of ‘have been confirmedAndor‘ and ‘Ahsoka‘And an animated series of Darth Maul. On the horizon, although without date, projects appear as a story about the Jedi origins signed by James Mangold, an adventure by Tika Waititi and the return of King Skywalker. Where do we come from. After Lucasfilm’s purchaseDisney bet strongly with a new trilogy that premiered between 2015 and 2019 and that, although devastated at the box officewith more than 4.4 billion admitted worldwide, The most traditionalist fans did not like to like. The spin-off ‘was only An unexpected batacazo: just 393 million dollars of collection, to which projects canceled in chain followed, including Kevin Feige and Patty Jenkins movies. Series like ‘Andor‘ either ‘Ahsoka‘They achieved the support of criticism and public, but its impact globally was incomparably lower to the movies. And the failure of the Ubisoft ‘video gameStar Wars Outlaws‘He has endorsed that the saga is no longer infallible. The problem of nostalgia. Star Wars’s great dilemma in the Disney era has been his nostalgia addiction and to the Fan Service. Attempts to content the most traditional fans have resulted in products that, or are too conservative, such as the very critical and very unlike ‘The last Jedi’a film capable of being measured in terms of quality with the classics of the franchise, but Densed by fans). The audience has been fragmented: the riskiest projects, such as ‘Andor’, receive praise from critics but They click on a audience and They cost a fortune. What does the new plan intend to solve? The prowned strategy at the Star Wars Celebration is clear: with fans it is not enough to maintain these films and series, such as They have demonstrated ‘Andor’ or ‘Ahsoka’. You have to return to the box office parameters of the films produced by Abrams, that is to say to films-Event that are worldwide phenomena at a mass scale. ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ bets on the accessible and charism of its protagonists (remember: Baby Yoda marked Star Wars even Before receiving an official name); And ‘Starfighter’ seeks a broader audience with a story that does not require “doing homework” and resorting to a star like Gosling, oblivious to the usual blockbusters. But will it solve it? Obviously, it is complicated to predict because countless factors come into play. Projects such as the Spin-Offs ‘Solo’ and ‘Rogue One’ had all to win, but they worked with discretion (or directly) at the box office: their problem was, perhaps, the excessive dependence of the Lore Previous, the need to know the long history of the saga. Superficially, it seems that ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ and ‘Starfighter’ will circulate in another direction, which could inject the long -awaited revitalization of the franchise. An important property. It must be taken into account, however, that since the purchase of Lucasfilm for 4,050 million dollars, Disney has tripled its investment: the ‘Star Wars’ franchise has generated CERCA of 12,000 million dollars in direct income Until 2024. That income comes from the box office of the films, yes, but also from attraction parks, cruises and, above all, merchandising. However, its profitability cannot be compared to franchises such as ‘Frozen’ or Marvel. Internal earthquakes. In addition, the box office is not the only problem of ‘Star Wars’: Kathleeen Kennedy has started a discreet withdrawal of the Presidency of Lucasfilm and prepares his succession. Although Filoni and Levy’s films are still under their mantle, the announcement of the search for someone who relieves what has been Lucasfilm’s great architect since the purchase of Disney is the best example that things are changing in Disney. Header | Disney In Xataka | Before selling ‘Star Wars’, George Lucas imagined a megalómana series: 10 times more expensive than a saga movie

births have fallen 50% since the Baby Boom time

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Spain does not go through its best demographic moment. The data published yesterday by the INE show that the country touches the 49.1 million of inhabitants, Your biggest brand of the historical series, with almost 1.7 million residents more than at the beginning of this decade. And yet, despite that record figure, that he had never lived as many people in Spain as now, the truth is that demography faces a huge challenge: birth of birth, which makes growth It basically supports In immigration. And there is a fact that reveals it clearly: the number of births has fallen more than 50% From the Baby Boom. Spain, in record. Spain faces a peculiar population scenario. He had never resided so many people in the country nor had he been so close to reaching the barrier of the 50 million inhabitants, and yet, despite that good news advanced yesterday For the INE, Spain also faces a deep and worrying demographic crisis. It may sound contradictory, but deep down both trends have little mysterious: the census grows, but supported fundamentally in The arrival of immigrantswhich has been the great demographic crutch of the country throughout the last year. With regard to birth, things are very different. Waiting to know the final balance of 2024, the 2023 data They reflect that this indicator is far, far away, from going through its best moment. A figure: 49.07 million. That is the official number of resident population of Spain the first day of 2025. The data is good for several reasons. As Remember the INEit is the “maximum value of the historical series” and shows that in the last year the state register won about 458,300 people. Reading is clear, as is its explanation: if Spain grows it is basically because of the balance of immigrants. “Population growth was due to the increase of people born abroad, since those born in Spain decreased,” Point out The statistical observatory before moving on to the data: on January 1, the population born in Spain had experienced a quarterly fall of 0.05%, while the one born abroad grew 1.47%. And how was birth? Waiting for the definitive and updated data, for the moment the brushstrokes that the INE leaves are not especially good. Birth in Spain falls or in the best case stagnates with a slight growth. And that as long as we talk about short -term comparisons. If we expand the focus and compare the current number of births with which Spain registered decades ago, in the Baby Boom, The difference is abysmal. The provisional estimates of the INE show that between January and November 2024 some were recorded in the whole of Spain 296,100 birthsmore or less like the previous year (+0.8%). If we go to the closed data of 2023 we verify that during that year they were born in Spain 320,656 babies2.6% less than in 2022 and far from the 425,700 that the INE counted only a decade before. Year Total births Resident population (January 1) 1975 669,378 35,569,375 1980 571.018 37,346,940 1985 456,298 38,407,829 1990 401,425 38,853,227 1995 363,469 39,639,726 2000 397,632 40,470,182 2005 466,371 43,296,335 2010 486,575 46,486,621 2015 420,290 46,449,565 2020 341,315 47,332,614 2023 320,656 48,085,361 A percentage: 50%. The above are annual or monthly comparative. The most interesting readings are obtained by opening the focus, as the Professor of Human Geography Rafael Puyol has done in An article Posted in The conversation. It basically exposes two figures: if during the best years of the Baby Boom (In demographic terms), there for 50, 60 and the first half of the 70s, they were born in Spain between 650,000 and 660,000 babies, now that figure has been cut in half. Since 2017 It does not reach 400,000. With two concrete figures the jump is better appreciated. In 1960 they were registered in Spain 663,375 births. In 2023 were 320,656. In summary: a collapse of more than 50% in a matter of a few decades, a devastating percentage that for Puyol is basically explained by a combination of economic and social factors. Which is it?Among others the changes in the family model and the hierarchy of values, education and The incorporation From women to the labor market. A trend, three indicators. Beyond raw birth data, The expert animates to look at three key demographic indicators. The first is fertility, the “average number of children per woman of proper age.” In Spain that mean remains below The 2.1 barrier which are considered necessary for generational renewal since the 80s. Moreover, in 2023 it was 1.12. The second data is the collapse of the number of women with ages in the strip that are usually associated with motherhood, between 25 and 39 years. After making accounts Puyol warns that so far from the century the number of women with that profile in Spain has fallen into more than 700,000. “Potential mothers are increasingly scarce,” warns. The third factor is that we have children every time. In fact the number of lighting between Mothers of 40 or more years It has shot 20% in a decade. Why is it important? Because birth evolution is not just a statistical curiosity or a problem for demographers. At a higher volume of births, the population pyramid is widen more by the base and less is the aging of a country, which has implications at a social, labor and of course for Public coffers. The clearest example is the sustainability of pension system. It is not an exclusive problem from Spain. Something similar occurs in other nations, both from the rest of Europe and from countries and Japan, South Korea either Even Chinathat also faces the challenge of aging. Images | Mikel Seijas Alonso (Flickr) 1 and 2 In Xataka | Immigration has promoted demographic growth and is strengthening pensions in Spain: Social Security confirms it

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