believed

We believed that the brain evolved to be rational. Science has a much more uncomfortable answer

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We love to think of ourselves as deeply logical beings, since after all, we call ourselves Homo sapienswhich can be translated as the ‘man who thinks’. When we make a decision, from what car to buy to who to vote for, we like to believe we’ve weighed the pros and cons with the coolness of an algorithm. But biological reality acts as a bucket of cold water by pointing out that our mind has evolved to survivenot to think rationally. The myth of the logic machine. To understand why we sometimes make decisions that seem absurd or get carried away by cognitive biases, we must look to our evolutionary past. The classics of modern evolutionary psychology, driven by figures such as Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, established a fundamental basis when seeing that our current cognitive mechanisms were forged in ancestral environments. Here we must bear in mind that in the savanna, stopping to statistically calculate the probability that a rustling in the undergrowth was a lion or simply the wind was a recipe that could end with almost certain death. The one who survived was the one who ran away without thinking rationally. It is not exclusive. This decision-making architecture is not unique to us, since science has already traced the evolutionary roots of our decisions. comparing us with non-human primates. The result is that monkeys also display economic biases and irrationalities similar to ours, demonstrating that many of our logical “errors” are hardwired into our evolutionary lineage. Minimal effort. If we are not rational in the strict sense, what are we? This is where one of the most interesting concepts in recent cognitive science comes in, pointing to an idea that changes the way we see ourselves: “resource rationality.” According to this modelthe human mind is not irrational, but hyperefficient, since the brain consumes an enormous amount of energy and time is always limited. With this premise, what our mind does is optimize our decisions taking into account the limited resources available to it. This causes us to take mental shortcuts and make biases because processing all the information perfectly would be a slow and exhausting process. In other words, the brain prefers a quick, “good enough” decision that keeps us alive, over a logically perfect decision that leaves us paralyzed analyzing data. Think to justify ourselves. In a 2021 article published in American Psychologistit is argued that humans are not nearly as “rational” as we tend to believe, and they suggest that rationalization itself may be a human adaptation. Often, we do not use our intellect to arrive at objective truth, but rather to justify decisions we have already made emotionally or intuitively. In a complex social environment, having the ability to convince others, justify our behavior, and coordinate group action was much more useful for social survival than being a solitary, purely objective thinker. We are adapting. All of this does not mean that we have a “broken” mind, but rather that science suggests that our mental processes should be judged not by whether they comply with textbook laws of probability, but by how well they function in the real, physical environment in which we operate. In short, it is not that we are incapable of reasons but that human rationality is limited, contextual and tremendously practical. We were not designed by evolution to pass formal logic exams or to be perfect algorithms with no margin for error. We were designed to make decisions that, with the incomplete information and limited time we have, allow us to see a new dawn. Images | Wes Hicks In Xataka | We had always believed that evolution had been arrested for thousands of years. The redheads were telling us the opposite

We had always believed that all rabbits on the Iberian Peninsula were the same type of rabbit. we believed wrong

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The humble rabbit that we find in any of our mountains has, historically, been the great protagonist and the fundamental pillar of the Iberian ecosystems. Jewels of our fauna such as the Iberian lynx or the imperial eagle depend on it, and until now we all thought that the councils of the peninsula belonged to a single species, the European rabbit. A new paradigm. However, science has just turned our taxonomic tree upside down, since a new and comprehensive study published in the magazine Biological Conservation and led by IESA-CSIC researchers has confirmed what genetics had been hinting at for some time: two different species of rabbits coexist on the Iberian Peninsula. A change. The debate is not entirely new, since previous work had already documented differences between rabbits from the east and north of the peninsula and those from the southwest, which also extend across northern Africa. Until today, these differences were resolved by dividing the rabbits in two subspecies: Oryctolagus cuniculus cuniculus and Oryctolagus cuniculus algirus. But now science has said that this is not the case, and it is accompanied by a large amount of evidence from different areas that go beyond DNA itself. Here researchers have synthesized definitive evidence in genetics, morphology, ecology, reproduction, parasitology and even the microbiome of these animals. And the conclusion is that the differences are so profound that the southwest Iberian lineage must be elevated to the category of an independent species, officially being called the Iberian rabbit. What remains For its part, the lineage from the east and north of the peninsula, and its populations introduced from the rest of the world, such as in Australia, will maintain the classic name of European rabbit. Because? The question we can ask ourselves in light of this study is: How is it possible that two animals so similar to the naked eye are different species? The answer lies in the ice, since the genetic differences between both lineages are estimated at about two million years. And during the Pleistocene ice ages, the original populations of rabbits were isolated in different “climate refuges” in southern Europe. One group was confined to the Ebro valley area, while the other survived in the vicinity of the Gulf of Cádiz. This geographic isolation sustained for millennia forced different evolutionary paths and today the evidence even points to incipient speciation, with studies reporting chromosomal incompatibilities when both lineages intersect in the areas where they currently coincide. Its consequences. This change in status is not a mere academic whim or a laboratory technicality, since it has consequences. By being recognized as a unique species, exclusive to the Iberian Peninsula (and part of North Africa), they completely change the rules of the game for conservation. For example, the areas where the threatened Iberian lynx lives coincide geographically, for the most part, with the distribution area of ​​this new species in decline. That is why saving the Iberian rabbit is, literally, saving the lynx. Images | David Atkins In Xataka | “We are fighting Satan”: the US war to save bees from the invasion of a murderous creature

Science believed that geomagnetic storms had a limit. A miscalculation had been hiding the truth for decades

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It is well known that geomagnetic storms and solar winds can significantly affect telecommunications devices on Earth. However, we have always had one piece of information that reassured us quite a bit in that regard: the saturation of geomagnetic storms. This means that there is a limit beyond which, no matter how much the intensity of the storm increases, the harmful electrical currents that are normally generated in our atmosphere do not continue to intensify. It would mean that we have already seen the worst side of this solar phenomenon and, although it has been quite worrying, it has not been devastating. The problem is that now a team of scientists from NASA and Lancaster University has observed that, in reality, this saturation phenomenon was the result of a statistical error known as regression to the mean. It seems that the intensity of electric currents can continue to increase. And of course, that is very worrying. too far. The intensity of the solar winds is measured by spacecraft located at Lagrange point 1 (L1), much closer to the Sun than to the Earth. This is no coincidence. It was done on purpose, because it allows them to be detected with some margin of action before they impact our planet. However, there is a problem, since the intensity with which these solar winds actually arrive is not the same as that measured in L1. To know the real intensity with which they reach Earth, a calculation is made by extrapolating with distance. This gives us approximate data, but never exact. For them to be truly accurate, the intensity of the solar winds should remain constant all the way to Earth and that is not the case. They can intensify or weaken. All of this leads to a margin of error in the calculations. Furthermore, the very magnitude that is measured in the ships in L1 can already lead to calculation errors, which would increase this margin even further. Regression to the mean. When many calculations are made that contain errors, something known as regression to the mean occurs, where the most extreme values ​​are possibly overstated. That is to say, solar winds that were considered more extreme may not have been so extreme. On the other hand, the effects of geomagnetic storms on Earth are easy to measure accurately, since they are measured directly on Earth. And this is where the problems begin. We are relating values ​​on Earth with oversized data from the Sun. What we consider a maximum response on Earth is actually because the solar storms were not as big as they seem. That is why the curve is flattened. The scientists of the study that has just been published consider that with more real data on the intensity of the solar winds the curve would not flatten. It would continue to rise. Solar winds and electric currents. The Sun is surrounded by a gas made up of electrically charged particles, known as plasma. These are continually in motion, giving rise to what are known as solar winds. The problem is that, sometimes, when solar activity is very high, they move with much more intensity. So much so that they can shoot towards the Earth. Luckily, our planet has a magnetic field which, in principle, acts like a bubble, protecting us from those charged particles. It does what it can, but if the solar winds are very intense, because the great solar activity has unleashed a geomagnetic storm, the particles end up overcoming that barrier and reach our atmosphere. There, electrical currents are formed that are measured to analyze the effects of this activity on Earth. Auroras are the result of electrical currents that form in the atmosphere. From northern lights to satellite failures. When these charged particles reach Earth, two types of effects can occur. On the one hand, the northern lightswhich are the result of the emission of light in different colors when the atoms present in atmospheric gas molecules are excited. On the other hand, these currents can affect our electrical and telecommunications systems, causing problems of varying severity. There have already been some very serious phenomena, such as Carrington event of 1859in which telegraphic communications around the world failed. Already in the time of satellites, the largest was the Quebec blackout of 1989with which the entire electrical network of this Canadian province collapsed in just 92 seconds. We have to shorten distances. The authors of the study that has just been published point out that, to understand the true magnitude of geomagnetic storms and solar winds, spacecraft that measure their intensity must be placed much closer to Earth. They have already analyzed a million nearby data and the results have not been encouraging. Therefore, prevention is more essential than ever. And, taking into account that the saturation phenomenon that so reassured us is not real, what happened in Carrington and Quebec would be dwarfed by what could happen in the future. Image | Nithin Sivadas NASA Goddard Space Flight Center In Xataka | Auroras are seen across Europe, including the south, during the largest geomagnetic storm since 2005

We believed that laboratories and millions were needed to build a GPU. A maker is setting one up at home

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For years we have assumed that build a GPU It was a field reserved for companies with advanced factories, engineering teams and million-dollar budgets. It wasn’t an absurd idea: just look at the complexity of any modern graphics card to understand why it seemed out of reach for a person. But what he has done Matthias Balwierzknown as Bitluni, forces us to qualify that certainty. It has not replicated a GeForce nor does it intend to compete with NVIDIA, but it does is building from home a graphics machine with thousands of RISC-V microcontrollers. The first phase brings together 8,192 of those microcontrollers, each linked directly to an RGB LED. This decision makes the montage difficult to fit into the usual categories: the design brings together in the same structure the graphic processing and the surface on which the result must appear. In technical terms, it is designed to act as both a graphics card and a screen, without depending on a separate monitor. Of course, the project remains a partial prototype, still far from the scale and capabilities planned for the complete system. A GPU made pixel by pixel That architecture was not defined from the beginning. The maker began thinking about building some type of screen, but when studying the cost and difficulty of the project he ruled out resorting to components Addressable RGBwhich would have made the whole set too expensive. The alternative was more direct: solder an LED to each microcontroller and turn each chip into a visible graphics unit on its own. The decision contained part of the budget, although it multiplied the design, assembly and programming work necessary to coordinate thousands of elements. The scale becomes clearer when we look at the complete objective. A resolution of 1920×1080 would have required more than two million microcontrollers, shooting the cost and complexity far beyond what Bitluni had set itself. The maker then lowered the ambition to 320×200 pixels, a resolution associated with video games of the DOS era, but which still requires 64,000 chips. The components installed so far represent just a first stage of a machine that would multiply its size almost eightfold if it is completed. To organize such a large amount of hardware, Bitluni divided the system into 16×32 “pixel” boards, conceived as independent modules within the set. These are distributed in a circular arrangement that reminds of Cray-1the historic supercomputer of the seventies, although the reference is mainly visual. Internal coordination is also hierarchical: each group of 32 microcontrollers is under the control of a more powerful CH32V unit, in charge of organizing the operation of that section and serving as an intermediate level within the machine. The choice of the QingKe CH570 explains part of the economic logic of the project. It is a microcontroller with a 32-bit RISC-V CPU, a limited instruction set and a frequency of up to 100 MHz. It also integrates a USB controller, a 2.4 GHz transceiver and support for Bluetooth 5.0 LE. Bitluni was able to buy each unit for about $0.13, but the advantage is diluted when multiplied by the entire planned matrix: only the chips necessary to reach 320×200 pixels would exceed $8,000. The problem grows when projecting the power supply of the complete system. It speaks of an estimate of 2,161 W, equivalent to about 655 amps at 3.3Vfor the final planned configuration. The media points out that each microcontroller consumes around 10 mA, although it does not offer a breakdown that allows us to separate the expense of the chips, LEDs and auxiliary electronics. To support such a load, Bitluni has turned to a source Corsair WS3000 and own converters capable of transforming the 12 V output into the required 3.3 V. A big part of the project is also making the infrastructure that allows everything else to work. Bitluni designed the PCBs, power circuits, interface boards and breadboards, tackling a six-layer board for the first time. The complexity of the design ended up pushing him to the limits of the manufacturing service he used. In parallel, he studied an immersion cooling solution and came to the size of the acrylic container he would have needed, although he left that option on hold for economic and environmental reasons. Programming posed another problem of scale: it was not enough to manufacture the boards, the code also had to be loaded into each microcontroller. To avoid doing it by hand, Bitluni 3D printed a small tool with three contacts and attached it to the carriage. a 3D printer. A Python script sent G-code commands to move it to the exact position of each chip and complete the process in a repeatable manner. The printer thus stopped manufacturing parts to become an automated programming machine. This machine does not compete in performance, efficiency or size with a modern graphics card, nor has it yet reached the scale that Bitluni projected. Its value lies in exposing, through separate components, tasks that a commercial solution concentrates or distributes among specialized chips and circuits: calculation, control, power, coordination and visualization. By rebuilding them with low-cost microcontrollers, the maker has turned an unusual idea into a system that can be designed, tested and expanded in stages. It is not a conventional home GPU, but an engineering experiment taken to unusual limits. Images | Bitluni In Xataka | Huawei’s He Tingbo: “This is the first time China has proposed a new principle for the chip industry.” Not everyone is convinced

We believed that stress was only psychological. Science shows that it also depends on the amount of water you drink

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We all know that facing a tight deadline, a job interview, or a heated argument trigger our stress levelsand it is nothing more than a basic evolutionary response. However, science is beginning to see that the intensity with which our body reacts to a stressor depends not only on our psychology, but on something as fundamental as the amount of water we drink throughout the day. It has been investigated. A recent study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology has put on the table the relationship that exists between the general state of hydration and the reactivity of cortisol to acute stress. In other words, a dehydrated body is a body that overreacts to the problems that may arise on a daily basis. Cortisol. To understand this finding, we must first look at the ‘place’ where our stress is regulated, which is the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis. This system is activated when we face a psychosocial threat that culminates in the release of cortisol, which is our main stress-related hormone and can be easily measured through saliva. Logically, cortisol at normal levels is necessary for survival, but the problem arises when it remains high for a long time, which begins to generate many problems in our body and also confronts us with anxiety disorders. Hydration. This is where water comes into play, since dehydration, even mild, is not just having a dry mouth but biologically, it is a major stressor. When we do not drink enough water, our blood volume decreases and its concentration increases. The body perceives this as a threat to homeostasis and responds by releasing hormones to try to compensate for this lack of fluid, such as vasopressin, which causes us to urinate much less to avoid ‘wasting’ water. Threats. What science demonstrates here is that when we subject a person who is poorly hydrated to psychological stress, the body experiences a double threat. Here the nervous system is already dealing with the physiological stress of lack of water and, if we add to that an external stressor, such as a work problem, the cortisol response shoots up much more abruptly than in a well-hydrated person. But we are not facing something completely isolated, but rather there are many studies who have found a relationship between state anxiety and hydration. If we go to the purest physiology, it makes sense, since the brain is made up of 73% water and that is why it is extremely sensitive to a drop in the amount of liquid drunk throughout the day. It is not the same for everyone. Human biology is rarely a simple equation, as the salivary cortisol response to psychosocial stress has high variability between people. Age, sex, coffee consumption, smoking or steroid levels act as modulators of this hormone, for example. However, the state of hydration is now emerging as one of the most easily modified variables by ourselves. We can’t change our age or erase a family problem, but we can make sure that our fluid intake doesn’t make things more difficult for our nervous system. Images | engin akyurt In Xataka | The myth of “two liters of water a day” collapses: a mistake from 1945 that science is now trying to correct

A study confirms that they are more durable than previously believed

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For years, the fear of an electric car battery failing prematurely has been one of the great brakes to make the leap to this type of vehicles. And although they are still systems with a good margin for improvement, the technology has advanced a lot since the Nissan Leaf It was first put into circulation in 2010. In fact, several recent studies based on real data from hundreds of thousands of cars suggest that this fear was, to some extent, unjustified. Why it is important. The cost of replacing a battery is one of the main reasons why many buyers are still wary of electric vehicles. In fact, according to a 2025 survey by the firm AutoPacific shared According to the Wall Street Journal, the fear of having to pay for a battery replacement is the number one reason why potential buyers rule out an electric vehicle. In detail. The most recent datacompiled by the analysis firm Recurrent from thousands of real vehicles in circulation, show that an average electric vehicle retains around 95% of its original range after five years of use. And the trend improves the newer the car, since according to the study, 2026 models retain an average of 97% of their autonomy after three years and 95% after five. The difference with the first electric ones is even more striking if you look at the battery replacement rate. One in twelve electric cars manufactured between 2011 and 2016 had to change their battery at some point. Among those manufactured from 2022 onwards, that figure has fallen to 0.3%, according to the same Recurrent data. Between the lines. Why have things improved so much? Experts point to better battery chemistries, more sophisticated thermal management systems and increasingly precise control software. Viet Nguyen-Tien, a researcher at the London School of Economics specializing in electric vehicles, explains told the WSJ that these advances have allowed modern batteries to last as long as a combustion car engine, even traveling more kilometers. Additionally, a less obvious reason is that traditional lab tests were much more aggressive than real driving. Simona Onori, researcher at Stanford University, counted to NPR that in everyday use the car constantly accelerates, brakes and recovers energy, a pattern much less demanding on the battery than the extreme charge and discharge cycles that were previously used to simulate its wear. According to Onori, batteries “age very gracefully” when used like this. On the other hand, Cox Automotive, which manages used car auctions in the United States, has analyzed nearly 80,000 electric cars and found an average battery health of 92%. And among electric vehicles that are more than ten years old, more than 90% continue to circulate with their original battery, according to Recurrent data cited by NPR. Be careful, not everything is perfect. Batteries do degrade faster in certain circumstances. The fast direct current charging often accelerates wear. And it is that according to the telematics company Geotaba battery usually charged at high power loses autonomy at twice the rate of one charged more gently, although even then it retains about 90% of its capacity after several years. As shared in WSJ, always charging at 100% or leaving the battery at 0% for a long time also accelerates aging, as do extreme temperatures, whether cold or hot. And now what. It is still early to know how long these batteries will really last in the very long term, because the vast majority of electric vehicles in circulation have not even remotely reached the end of their useful life. Scott Case, CEO of Recurrent, think that people’s confidence in these batteries should be considerably greater than it exists today. Cover image | Eren Goldman In Xataka | Xavier Celda, Norauto specialist: “Many do not check the air conditioning gas because they do not spend 60 euros and the breakdown is 400”

Europe believed that the Russian ghost fleet moved oil. Report points to something much worse: drone “aircraft carriers”

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During the First World War, the United Kingdom created the called Q-ships: Seemingly harmless merchant ships that hid cannons under their decks to attract German submarines and surprise them when they approached. The idea of ​​turning a commercial ship into a weapon It wasn’t new.. The striking thing is that, more than a century later, it could have evolved much more than we imagined. It all started with some drones. At the end of 2024 they began to register drone raids on several American military bases in England and, shortly after, on other strategic facilities in Germany. The devices appeared and disappeared without a trace, forcing investigations to be opened that they never identified publicly to those responsible. Those flights seemed like another episode in Europe’s growing hybrid war, although a new report maintains that the true origin could have been much further from the coast. Capture of the IISS report The hypothesis. a study from the International Institute for Strategic Studies maintains that it is “highly probable” that Russia used ships linked to its well-known ghost fleet as platforms to launch and recover drones. This network of oil tankers and merchants had been associated until now with crude oil transportation to avoid Western sanctions. If the hypothesis ends up being confirmed, those ships would have also played a military function much more sophisticated covert. A tanker can become an aircraft carrier. They counted TWZ analysts that the great advantage of a merchant ship is precisely that no one expects it to act as a military platform. A ship can remain for days in international waters, discreetly approach the coast, launch a reconnaissance drone and continue its trade route without raising suspicion. Compared to an aircraft carrier, whose presence is impossible to hide, a cargo ship offers perfect cover for operations that are difficult to attribute. The chosen bases. The targets included facilities such as RAF Lakenheathwhich is being prepared for host nuclear weapons American, as well as RAF Mildenhall, RAF Fairford, RAF Feltwell and Ramstein air base in Germany. The researchers collected around of 170 citizen noticesof which approximately half were considered credible after being corroborated by several witnesses or images. They also detected coordinated flight patternsdifferent types of aircraft and trajectories incompatible with recreational use. The sea offers an explanation. The report poses that some drones were able to take off from Russian-related ships located out of visual range of the coast. Among the possibilities is the Orlan-10a military drone with sufficient autonomy to cover these distances and equipped with intelligence sensors, surveillance, reconnaissance and even electronic warfare capabilities. The authors themselves recognize that using an identifiable military model would increase the risk of attribution, so they do not rule out the use of modified commercial drones to make it even more difficult to trace their origin. The boss worries. Plus: the study’s authors admit that their conclusions rest on a combination of cluesknown capabilities and geographical coincidences, not on definitive public evidence. No European government has officially linked a specific ship to a specific incursion, although various policymakers have called for new investigations. For their part, both the British Ministry of Defense and the US Air Force in Europe have confirmed drone flights, but remain silent on any intelligence information related to their possible authorship. The hybrid war. If the hypothesis is correct, the problem would no longer be solely the existence of a ghost fleet dedicated to transporting Russian oil. Europe would also have to assume that some of those same ships can serve as discrete platforms for espionage operationsreconnaissance or electronic warfare hundreds of kilometers from the front. In other words, the biggest threat of the report is not to identify who launched those drones, but to propose that a simple merchant ship could play part of the role that until now was only attributed to an aircraft carrier. Image | Google In Xataka | Europe has encountered a problem bigger than Russia: drones cannot be stored for more than eight weeks In Xataka | Cities such as London or Madrid appear on Russia’s new objective map. The reason: drone production

We believed that VAR was going to put an end to the classic favoritism of the World Cup host. Then the White House made a call

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“When the certainty of the rules is no longer guaranteed, the integrity of the game is called into question” These are the words with which UEFA, in charge of overseeing the competitions of the European confederation, has responded to FIFA’s decision to withdraw a red card from Folarin Balogun, star forward of the United States team that faces Belgium in the round of 16. The statement is just the latest response that FIFA has received regarding this controversial decision that comes, according to The New York Timesthat Donald Trump, president of the United States, called Gianni Infantino by phone to pressure him and demand that he remove the automatic match penalty that is applied when a player receives a red card. FIFA’s decision is the latest maneuver to favor the host team in a World Cup and adds to the long list of favors for the locals that have traditionally marked the World Cup. Everything indicated that with VAR, the video refereeing tool, this was going to end or, at least, it was going to be very complicated to give small pushes to the local teams. But FIFA is always ready to surprise you. The regulation mess Forlain Balogun, a United States forward who has three goals in the 2026 World Cup, plays an aerial ball. It is the 64th minute of the round of 32 match of the 2026 World Cup and the person who disputes the ball is Tarik Muharemovic. The game is about to experience a turning point. The score reads 1-0, the United States has gone ahead with a goal from Balogun himself who is having a great championship but is about to lose its star for the remainder of the match and the round of 16 against Belgium. Or so we believed. In the dispute, the American player hits the Bosnian defender from behind. An obvious foul that results in a red card. As he falls, Balogun accidentally lands with his studs on Muharemovic’s calf, drags his foot and bends the defender’s ankle. The VAR calls the referee to observe the play carefully. Although fortuitous, the force applied by the American player is considered excessive and he ends up expelled. The match ends 2-0 and, of course, the worst thing for the United States is the impossibility of having their star striker in the tie against Belgium, the European team (hence the statement from UEFA, which is also in an open war against FIFA) against which they will play for a place in the quarterfinals. The winner will play against the winner of tonight’s Spain-Portugal. A more common setback in short knockout tournaments, the same setback as if, for example, a player accumulates two yellow cards in different phases during the championship. However, FIFA surprised yesterday with a statement: Forlain Balogun’s sanction was suspended. The alleged reason is that the suspension of a match was at the mercy of the player’s behavior in the next year. If he reoffends in a violent situation again, the rule will be applied to him. To do this, FIFA has based itself on article 27 of its disciplinary regulations, which states that punishments can be suspended for a certain period of time subject to the player’s attitude. A decision that as they remember from the Belgian team (clearly affected by the player’s non-suspension), collides directly with article 66.4 of the same regulations in which it is specified that a player who receives a red card will not be able to play the next match. In Sports CarouselIturralde González, former referee and referee commentator on the program, explains that the article that FIFA clings to is designed for disturbances on soccer fields and attitudes that go beyond the merely sporting. He explains that, in fact, FIFA does not withdraw the red card and only suspends the impossibility of playing the next match, a fact that has not been seen since 1962 when Garrincha was sent off in a tough semi-final against Chile but was cleared to play in the final against Czechoslovakia. Click on the image to go to the original tweet The call that went over the VAR We could think that FIFA’s decision was serious and fell within one of the many tricks that they have been using for years to favor local teams. However, a post by Donald Trump in X and the explicit support of the White House in which he thanked FIFA directly, he made the hare jump. The New York Times has been the first medium to publish what could be suspected once the thanks of the president of the United States was made public: The White House called Gianni Infantino directlypresident of FIFA, to ask that Forlain Balogun play against Belgium. In The Wall Street Journal They narrate that Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce, and Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the working group that the White House has active for the organization of the 2026 World Cup, went to work on the same night of the United States – Bosnia and Herzegovina. From that moment on, they count on WSJa machinery made up of specialist lawyers related to Donald Trump began to move to try to stop the sanction. On the table was the possibility of challenging the red card and trying to prevent slow motion from being used in this type of actions in which video refereeing is involved (which many understand to magnify the damage caused by a kick or a stomp). The team, they explain in the media, was informed from the first moment but the United States National Team denied any possibility of revoking the sanction. While all this was happening, always according to internal sources of The Wall Street JournalDonald Trump directly picked up the phone to speak with Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA who has always been very close to the American president. At that time, Infantino responded to the US president that he could not assure him anything but confirmed that the suspension had been … Read more

We believed that sleeping with our dog or cat was a comforting and healthy idea. Science shows that it destroys your night’s rest

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More than ten years ago it was carried out a survey of 23,000 pet owners. There were curious data: a quarter of them admitted treating their pet as if they were small children and a little less than 75% admitted keeping photos of them. But perhaps the most striking thing is that half admitted sleeping with their pets. There is no memory of a sociological division of this magnitude since the potato omelet. So we’ve been wondering what science said about sleeping with your dog or cat. Do people really sleep with their pets? The truth is that sleep researchers haven’t paid much attention to the topic. We have a lot of pseudo-theories about ‘dominance’ or ‘doggy soul’ that are very successful on reality television, but the research in the ‘human-animal co-sleeping‘was a relatively forgotten area that in recent years has experienced a boom. As we have spoken on other occasions, sleep is a more cultural phenomenon than it seems and changes a lot between regions and times (Blunden, Thompson and Dawson; Worthman and Melby; Munroe, Munroe and Whiting). In the same way that it was relatively recently that Western societies separated resting places by age (children and adults), it was only relatively recently that spaces between humans and animals were completely separated. In fact, there are many cultures in which these coexistence practices are maintained naturally. And the most solid studies (Albert and Bulcroft; Westgarth et al.; Overgaauw) coincide with the survey in that there is a 50% split in co-sleeping with dogs and cats – which are the most common nocturnal companions (Albert and Bulcroft). And it’s curious because Since 2018 we know that dogs are less annoying than cats. In this sense, it cannot be said that the results of the survey are surprising. Research maintains that humans continue to show a strong attachment to their pets and are often considered important members of the family (Archer). As it says Smiththis is not free: animals are a source of support, affection, comfort, security and stability which can have important health benefits. It is true that the size of the pet has a lot to do with it and if we look in more detail (for example, in dogs) we see that 76.85% of Yorkshire Terriers or 62.96% of Chihuahuas sleep with their owners compared to 18.18% of Saint Bernards or 30.27% of Labradors. Even so, the percentage of Saint Bernards is a very high percentage. In addition to what Eckstein already pointed out, other factors that intervene are the number of children in the family (more likely where there are no children – Albert and Bulcroft) or gender (more likely with women). Some problems of sharing a bed with pets Research suggests there are some potential problems with sharing bedding with animals. Health risks. These include some immune responses, allergies, asthma or hypersensitivity pneumonitis; Bites and scratches can also occur through which infectious diseases associated with domestic animals can be contracted (Plaut, Zimmerman and Goldstein). Those most susceptible to these types of problems are young children, pregnant women and immunocompromised patients (Smith). However, the overall health risks are very low; almost insignificant if the animals receive medical care and maintain proper hygiene. Sleep problems. In general, the main problems related to sleep quality involve companions (kicking, snoring, etc.) and children, but pets also play an important role. Without going any further, a study from the Mayo Clinic found that fifty-three percent of pet owners who slept with their pets had problems resulting from it. Nevertheless, it is difficult to know the real impact of these interruptions because they are very short interruptions that by themselves explain little: however, it seems that Yes, there is a difference between sleeping in the bedroom or in the bed.. This is because interruptions can be related to temperature imbalances between humans and pets; as well as differences in sleep and wake cycles (Campbell and Tobler). If they only sleep in the bedroom, everything becomes easier. Behavior problems in animals. Jagoe and Serpell found that dogs that are allowed to sleep with their owners may experience an increase in aggression and separation-related problems. Effect on interpersonal relationships. Finally, animals can be an important source of conflict and stress in relationships. Coming to generate intimacy problems (Jagoe and Serpell) Should we sleep with our pets? Smith and his research team found that sleeping with pets in the bed had a small impact on sleep quality in the time taken to fall asleep or feeling tired when waking up. However, the authors maintain that the continued practice of co-sleeping with pets indicates benefits of social support, social interaction and personal safetydespite the disadvantages. In general, it seems that science agrees with common sense. Sleeping accompanied by animals can have some problems but always related to previous problems at a health and behavioral level. And, on the other hand, if our pet is healthy, has proper hygiene and a ‘good education’, not only are there no problems, but it can have very positive effects. The evidence has been divided in recent yearsbut remains unanimous in this regard Images | Faith Goble, John Liu, Tony Alter, Jon-Eric Melsæter. Xataka | We have been looking at Noah’s syndrome as a minority and controlled problem for years. we were wrong *An earlier version of this article was published in January 2016

80 years ago an American destroyer attacked what it believed to be an enemy submarine. We just discovered it was a sunken ship

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In June 1942, something unprecedented in modern American history happened: someone invaded them. In the middle of World War II, Japanese troops landed on Attu Island, in the extreme west of Alaska. What took place then was an icy and fleeting battle that resulted in the death of more than 3,000 people in less than three weeks. Faced with well-known operations reproduced ad nauseam in cinema on the European front or the South Pacific, the battle of Attu She was and is a great unknown. Eighty years later, the remains of that battle were still sunk on the seabed of the Aleutian Islands. Until nothing ago. The discovery. In July 2024, an archeology team funded by the US oceanographic agency NOAA and the US National Park Service carried out the first in-depth underwater exploration in the waters of Attu. There they found two shipwrecks from World War II: on the one hand, the Kotohira Maru, a Japanese military cargo ship sunk on January 5, 1943 by B-24 bombers. On the other hand, the SS Dellwood, an American cable ship that ran aground on an underwater pinnacle seven months later, on July 20, 1943. Both wrecks lie just 25 kilometers apart from each other. Why is it important. Because the Battle of Attu is probably the least studied campaign of the war and this finding is only the beginning of deeper research. Beyond recovering this military history, this discovery brings to the forefront another little-known tragedy: the one suffered by the Saskinax̂ indigenous people of Attu. After the occupation, the Saskinax̂ were deported to Japan, but when the war ended they were prohibited from returning: Attu had become a US military base. Of the 41 prisoners sent to Japan, only 25 survived and most ended up relocated to another island. Context. Despite being a brief and almost unknown battle, it was the fiercest: the ratio of American to Japanese casualties was the second highest of the war, only surpassed by the famous battle of Iwo Jima, as explained by the research team. The Kotohira Maru was bombed when it was trying to supply the troops isolated in Attu: it was carrying wood, food, fuel and construction materials, essential for the survival of the Japanese soldiers, who endured harsh climatic conditions (it is practically in the Arctic) and almost no trees. For its part, the SS Dellwood ran aground while laying communications cables between islands. In detail. To find the ships, the researchers dragged from their boat a high-resolution sonar capable of “photographing” the seabed with an accuracy of centimeters. When the sonar detected something of interest, they sent an underwater drone to investigate it closely with a video camera. In five days of work they inspected more than 1,000 targets at the bottom. But perhaps the most striking thing was not what they found, but what they solved. In May 1943, the destroyer USS Phelps attacked what it believed to be a Japanese submarine near Holtz Bay. They were wrong: this study has revealed that what the destroyer had detected as a submarine was actually the hull of the Kotohira Maru deposited on the seabed. Yes, but. The study has certain limitations. Strong underwater currents made the remote-controlled underwater robot’s work difficult, especially on the Kotohira Maru, leaving large areas of the wreck undocumented. The team recognizes that they need a more powerful robot to complete the job. There are also unanswered questions. Without going any further, the identity of the Kotohira Maru crew remains a mystery: the files only confirm that two people were rescued, a figure that the study’s own authors consider improbably low. And no one has yet addressed a thorny issue: who has legal sovereignty over these war wrecks. In Xataka | Barcelona started digging to build a parking lot. He ended up discovering a 10 m medieval ship of uncertain origin. In Xataka | The 17th century ship refloated in Cádiz held a surprise for archaeologists. One of more than 50 meters Cover | US Navy and Exploration of Alaska’s World War II Submerged Heritage: The Kotahira Maru and S.S. Dellwood Wreck Sites off Attu Island

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