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Getting a manicure while she was on sick leave almost cost her her job. He was saved by a detective who didn’t know how to do his job.

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Companies increasingly make use of the services of private detectives to investigate whether their employees really They are on sick leave or they are faking itwhich would be reason enough to a disciplinary dismissal. According to the detectives themselves, the companies that use their services do so because they previously They already have signs that there is fraud, which is why the majority of cases that are investigated agree with the companies that hire them and end up in disciplinary dismissal. However, in some cases, the way that evidence is obtained is the key to the success of the case. This is what happened to the employee of a beauty center in Barcelona. Despite being able to prove that there had been fraud, a sentence The Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia declared the dismissal null and void and forced the company to compensate its employee. Medical leave and dismissal. The employee at the beauty center went to the doctor because of pain in her left hand and back, and they gave her the temporary disability leavewith rest and rehabilitation to recover. While she was still on sick leave, the company began to suspect that perhaps she was not that sick and decided to hire a private detective to check what she was doing outside of work. The detective prepared a report in which he noted that the worker had performed a manicure service for which she had charged 35 euros in cash while she was still on sick leave. With that report as a key piece in its argument, the company fired her via disciplinary dismissal, alleging that she had broken trust and that she was taking advantage of her leave to work on her own. In your dismissal letter you could read: “(…) you summoned, and performed a manicure treatment on, a person who was accompanied by said company (of detectives), at the aforementioned address, and charged this person in cash 35 euros for the service performed. The company has sufficient evidence, images and videos that confirm the regularity of these events.” What the court decides. The worker appealed the dismissal because she understood that it was unfair and was based on evidence obtained illegally. In the first instance, the Social Court No. 1 of Barcelona agreed with the company and declared that the dismissal was appropriate, and assigned the employee to collect 771.15 euros for untaken vacations plus 10% late payment interest. But did not recognize compensation some. The story changed when the case reached the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJCAT), when the worker appealed that first sentence. The Social Court reviewed how the detective’s evidence had been obtained and concluded that it was invalid because it had been obtained by inducing the situation. That is to say, something that was already happening had not been observed, but rather the opportunity had been created for the employee to do that manicure. What Detectives Can and Can’t Do. The case puts on the table what private detectives can do when investigating a person on sick leave and what lines they cannot cross. From Sentinel Private Detectivesremember that the law “prohibits them from taking images or evidence of events that occur in the intimate part of people’s lives. The garden is also considered an extension of the home,” so they cannot record there if it is a closed space. The investigation agency points out that their work should focus on “following and observing, without forcing situations,” and that their role is that of “mere observers of facts and behaviors.” Jordi Briñoldirector of Brininvest Detectiveshighlights that its activity is regulated by the Private Security Law and for the Civil Procedure Law, and that in cases of sick leave they can only act in “open spaces.” According to his explanation, “anything that happens in intimate spaces or that has what is called an expectation of privacy, we cannot access there”, and any monitoring must comply with what he calls “the triple judgment of proportionality”, that is, that the evidence is adequate, necessary and that it does not take longer than reasonable. The researcher clarifies that they can carry out actions under pretext (for example, making an appointment in a publicly announced consultation), but “we cannot provoke an unnatural response”, which fits with the idea that the person under investigation cannot be induced to commit the infraction. Why the detective’s evidence is useless. In this case, the court considers that the detective did not limit himself to looking from the outside at what the convalescent employee was doing as his regulations dictate, but that he intervened to make the behavior happen for which she was later punished. Along these lines, the ruling links with the doctrine of the Supreme Court that rejects evidence based on provocation, and remembers that situations cannot be fabricated and then used as an excuse to fire. By removing the detective’s report from the case, the company’s entire argument collapsed, so the Court understands that the true reason for dismissal is that the worker I was on medical leavesomething that Law 15/2022 prohibits using illness as a reason to dismiss a person because it represents discrimination due to illness. For this reason, the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia declares the dismissal void, orders that the company reinstate the employee, pay her all the salaries that she stopped receiving during the time that the judicial process lasted and pay her 7,501 euros for moral damages, in addition to 600 euros in defense fees. In Xataka | Social Security has published the data on sick leave in 2024 and we have bad news: we have broken a record Image | Unsplash (Behnaz Kh)

When Spotify launched its first Wrapped, it didn’t know what it was creating: a real monster

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If companies have learned anything since the Internet has evolved into this strange algorithmic mass that sometimes escapes our control, it is that, if something creates a trend, it must be there. For a few days we can enjoy the latest Spotify Wrappedthe now classic annual review where we find data playfully designed to share on networks such as which artists we listen to the most on the platform or which songs have defined our year. And as it could not be otherwise, the networks are flooded with captures. So far everything is correct. But as happens with any content that becomes popular and people like it, alternatives arise. And that’s not bad. In fact, Spotify didn’t invent personalized annual reviews, but when we already see a pseudo-wrapped on platforms like WeTransfer (hey, good for them), the alarm bells are already ringing that perhaps we are slipping a little. And throughout these days I have found examples that are each more absurd. Spotify. Wrapped has become one of those excellent viral marketing strategies. Since its launch in 2016, Spotify has gotten millions of users to voluntarily share their listening data every December. The flood of screenshots that each user shares on social networks becomes a tool for creating FOMO that encourages another potential user to use Spotify, or even gives them reasons to stay on this platform. It has become more or less a cultural phenomenon, a tradition like Christmas itself. And of course, this has attracted other companies enough to want to replicate this effect at all costs. YouTube Recap Irresistible. As I said before, Spotify was not the first to make annual summaries, but it was the first to turn them into irresistibly shareable content. The key is in its design: very striking graphics, personalized statistics and a perfect format to share on your Instagram story. The hashtag #SpotifyWrapped becomes a global trending topic every year, generating organic advertising comparable to very few advertising campaigns. And the formula is repeated every year without few changes beyond the visual: take the data you already have about your users, wrap it in an attractive way and return it to share with other potential clients. PlayStation Wrap-Up A Wrapped for everything. Having an annual review of your platform or service has become mandatory for many companies, extending to all types of industries. In the field of entertainment and gaming, platforms such as YouTube, Apple Music, Amazon Music, PlayStation, Xbox, nintendo, Steam either Twitchamong many others, offer their own summaries. Curious not to see anything official that resembles it on Netflix and other streaming platforms, beyond some third-party tools, such as kapwingwhich allow you to import your own viewing data to see a similar overview. Twitch Recap cforced asses. Where the trend becomes truly interesting is in sectors where, a priori, an annual summary does not make much sense (or seen another way, cases ahead of their time). To Lidl (yes, the supermarket) has its annual review, where it tells you what you have bought the most through its app or how many times you have gone shopping. Lidl’s move is even nice, but there are cases that play a fine line. WeTransfer could perfectly fit in here. As a file transfer service I have no complaints (maybe one or two), but I would never have expected that a platform of this kind would also think of joining this type of marketing initiatives. And if we talk about forced cases, Securitas Direct. As is. The platform tells you through its My Verisure app data such as the number of times you have accessed and things like that. I can’t help but imagine someone anxiously awaiting their annual review of their alarm service to find out how many times they have been broken into this year. Jokes aside, here is already an area in which having a wrapped looks out of place. But if anyone finds these statistics useful, nothing to say about it. Courtesy of Jose Jacas More examples that embrace fashion. Duolingo even overtook Spotify this year by launching your Year in Reviewrevealing learning statistics, streaks and the dreaded error counter. Trakt, a website where users register series and movies what do you see, too has its own summaryalthough to see it you have to upgrade to their payment plan, so I’ve never seen it. WeTransfer Recap Platforms like Uber either LinkedIn They have also joined the bandwagon with their own versions. Even the New York Times has launched its “Year in Games” for Wordle, Connections and other games, showing statistics such as the average attempts in Wordle or the most correct categories in Connections. Viral logics. If something starts to gain traction on the internet, all brands want to be there, even if the connection with their business is forced. It is the fear of being left out of the conversation. The same FOMO effect that these tools achieve, in some way, also generates FOMO around companies that seek to enter this trend in any way. These annual reviews are no longer just a data analysis tool, but a format that brands try to appropriate to gain visibility and engagement. It works because we are very heavy on sharing content and we generate the occasional unpopular opinion in the process, even if it is your supermarket purchases. This is how we operate on the Internet. I can’t wait to see the Wrapped from my electric company to learn more about my consumption peaks or my bank account to see what nonsense I waste my money on. In Xataka | How to share Spotify Wrapped 2025 on Instagram, WhatsApp or other apps

We thought talking to ChatGPT and other AIs was private. We didn’t have these extensions stealing our conversations

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There are matters that we would not publish on social networks or comment out loud. However, there they go, flowing in a waterfall of messages towards an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, as if it were our best friend. There are no glances, no judgment, no awkward silences. There are answers that, many times, are limited to proving us right or convincing us. But beyond that, an uncomfortable question appears: what if everything we have told could end up in the hands of a third party? What if there is someone else reading those conversations? Opt out in training models or maximizing the security of our account may not be enough. There is another threat that is reaching millions of users these days, and they may not even be aware of it: browser extensions that spy on and steal what is said to chatbots. At the top of the list is Urban VPN Proxy. A Chrome extension with more than 6 million users, rated 4.7 stars and that, until the publication of the cybersecurity report that we will talk about today, showed a “Featured” badge on Google, something that we can still verify in a version archived at the Internet Archive. The discovery. What has set off the alarms is a report published by Koia company specialized in cybersecurity. It is not a generic warning or a hypothesis, but the result of analyzing what these tools do in the background while we browse. When looking at popular extensions, the kind that are installed to gain privacy or security, their researchers detected a worrying pattern: some were capable of reading and sending conversations held with artificial intelligence chatbots outside the browser. A much larger attack surface. The investigation indicates that Urban VPN Proxy did not target a single AI provider, but rather a broad set of popular platforms. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini either Microsoft Copilot appear among monitored services, greatly expanding the volume and diversity of data potentially captured. These conversations are not trivial: they often include intimate questions, financial information, or details of ongoing projects. Therefore, access to this type of exchange involves a very delicate level of exposure. How conversations are captured. According to the research firm, the mechanism does not depend on vulnerabilities in the chatbots themselves, but on the privileged place that the extensions occupy within the browser. Urban VPN Proxy monitors active tabs and, when the user accesses an AI platform, injects code directly into the page. This code intercepts the requests and responses exchanged with the server before the browser displays them on the screen, allowing access to the full content of the conversation in real time. What Urban VPN Proxy extracted were not jumbled fragments, but entire conversations with their associated context. Koi documents the systematic capture of user messages, AI responses, identifiers for each chat, and temporal data that allows them to be sorted and related to each other. This type of information, crossed over weeks or months, allows us to draw very precise usage patterns. From work habits to personal concerns, the value of the whole lies precisely in its continuity and not in a specific message. The content script that forwards the data It does not depend on activating the VPN. One of the most important nuances of the report is that conversation capture is not tied to the use of the VPN service itself. The mechanism, they explain, works independently, even when the VPN is disabled. It is enough to have the extension installed so that the code responsible for intercepting conversations continues operating in the background. There is no user-accessible switch that allows you to disable this collection without completely removing the browser extension. Conversation collection was not present from the beginning. According to the analysis, Urban VPN Proxy did not include this behavior in previous versions of the extension. The turning point comes on July 9, 2025, when an update is released that activates the capture of conversations with AI platforms by default. From there, any user with the extension installed and automatic updates activated began to execute that new code without an explicit notice comparable to the change in behavior or having to expressly accept that modification. What does “AI protection” promise? In the extension’s tab and in its messages to the user, Urban VPN Proxy presents this feature as an additional layer of security. According to its description, it serves to alert when personal data is entered into a chatbot or when a response includes potentially dangerous links. The problem is that this layer of notifications is not directly related to the collection of conversations. Activating or deactivating warnings does not prevent messages from continuing to be intercepted and sent to the company’s servers. The investigation did not stop at Urban VPN Proxy. By tracing the origin of the code and its behavior, Koi found that the same conversation capture logic appeared in other extensions published by the same publisher. Some present themselves as VPNs, others as ad blockers or browser security tools. Together, there are more than 8 million users between Chrome and Edge, which expands the scope of the problem and explains why researchers talk about an ecosystem and not a specific anomaly. Identified extensions for Chrome: Urban VPN Proxy 1ClickVPN Prox Urban Browser Guard Urban Ad Blocker Identified extensions for Microsoft Chrome: Urban VPN Proxy 1ClickVPN Proxy Urban Browser Guard Urban Ad Blocker Who is behind. Urban VPN Proxy is operated by Urban Cyber ​​Security Inc., a company linked to BiSciencea data intermediation firm, a data broker, as described by Koi. Koi recalls that BiScience had already been the subject of previous investigations by other cybersecurity experts for the collection and commercialization of browsing data. The report frames this case as an evolution of these practices, going from collecting browsing habits to capturing complete conversations held with artificial intelligence systems. The finding also puts the focus on how the user is informed. The extension generically mentions the processing of data related to AI services … Read more

We thought we “discovered” fire 50,000 years ago. We didn’t know how wrong we were.

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For decades paleontology has maintained a clear distinction in history: it is one thing to use fire and quite another to create it at will. Something that seems very silly, but is essential since until now the evidence we had on the table pointed to the ability to light a bonfire from scratch They dated back 50,000 years. But this has changed. A big change. A published study in Nature He told us that we were quite wrong about this. A team of researchers has pointed out that hominids already possessed technology to make fire voluntarily 415,000 years ago. That is, 375,000 years earlier than we thought. Although what is surprising is that it was not even our species, but the early Neanderthals. Something that has been known after studying a site found in Barnham in England that has given the necessary evidence to reach the end of the matter. How do we know? At the moment we do not have a time machine to travel to the past and see what happened in our history. That is why this discovery makes it surprising that they used reverse engineering to reach this conclusion. The elements that were available at the site were not just ashes, but the “ignition kit.” Researchers were able to identify fragments of pyrite and flint axes, which can be used to make fire. Although the key here is that the pyrite It is not native to that area, but hominids had to intentionally transport it to make fire voluntarily. The mechanism is, in essence, the prehistoric version of a modern lighter: striking the pyrite with the flint generates sparks capable of igniting dry tinder. Confirming it. With these indications, anyone could think that it could be a random fire, and that is why advanced techniques such as archeomagnetism, micromorphology and spectroscopy were used. In this case, the results indicated that the sediments had been heated to more than 700 ºC, which suggests that it was a concentrated and fed fire. This is also added to the fact that the flint axes presented specific cracks caused by cycles of heat and cooling, indicating that fires were made repeatedly. A big jump. The importance of this discovery is monumental since until now we assumed that complete control of fire was a late skill. This discovery sets the controlled ignition clock back by 375,000 years compared to previous evidence from French sites. This tells us that the minds of early Neanderthals, who were most likely found in that area, were more developed than thought. In this way, transporting pyrite implies long-term planning, which is not an instinctive reaction to the cold, evidencing a cognitive ability to think about the future. The domain of fire. Making fire at will is considered a great evolutionary advance since fire can lengthen the day for nighttime socialization or even cook food to obtain more energy with less digestive effort. This also represents a great geographical expansion for the species, since 400,000 years ago Europe was going through a very important glacial period, which made the heat of fire essential for the species to perpetuate itself. Images | Mladen Borisov In Xataka | Neither lions nor hyenas: at the top of the food chain 30 million years ago, there was a “pig” weighing more than a thousand kilos

If you didn’t make it to Black Friday or Cyber ​​Monday, you can still take advantage of all these deals

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Both Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday have ended, although we are still finding very good offers that have either continued from these days or have arrived now. In this article we are going to review the five best deals in technology and entertainment. Huawei Watch 5 by 359 eurosa very complete watch that has dropped in price from 649 euros. Google Pixel 9a by 379 eurosa good mobile for those who are interested in taking good photos without spending too much money. MacBook Air M4 by 849 euros Adding it to the cart, a laptop with a very good quality-price ratio. Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra by 989 eurosone of the best phones of the year with a more reasonable price. PlayStation Portal by 194.90 eurosthe PlayStation 5 peripheral that already allows you to play in the cloud. Huawei Watch 5 One of the best discounts we can find at MediaMarkt has fallen on its Deals of the Day. Today only, the Huawei Watch 5 can be purchased for a price of 359 euros. It is a beautiful and elegant smartwatch with titanium construction that has eSIM connectivityits autonomy is up to 4.5 days in standard mode and it has a good assortment of sensors to monitor physical activity. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Google Pixel 9a One of the mobile phones that has maintained its price in recent days is the Google Pixel 9awhich can still be purchased for 379 euros. It is a pretty smartphone interesting for its photographic sectionbut also because of its compact size of 6.3 inches and its screen that offers good brightness to be able to view content outdoors. Plus, your operating system will be up to date for many years. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links MacBook Air M4 If what you are looking for is a good laptop to work or study, be careful with the MacBook Air M4 that, when you add it to the PcComponentes cart, it remains 849 eurosone of the best prices we have seen to date. Weighs only 1.24 kgits screen is 13.6 inches, it incorporates Apple’s M4 chip and its autonomy is up to 18 hours of video playback. MacBook Air M4 (16GB, 256GB) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra Another of the phones that has maintained the price of Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday is the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultrawhich can be purchased at MediaMarkt for 989 euros (256 GB) or by 1,099 euros (512GB). Samsung’s mobile phone is one of the best that has been launched this year and It stands out mainly for its battery lifefor its screen—especially its anti-reflective treatment—and for its artificial intelligence functions. If you prefer, Powerplanet has the same 256 GB mobile slightly cheaper, since it is on sale for 949 euros. Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra (256GB) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links PlayStation Portal The PlayStation Portal price drops on rare occasions, but after the end of Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday it can be purchased with a discount that leaves it 194.90 euros (standard version) and by 194.90 euros (Midnight Black). It is a good accessory for the PlayStation 5 that, after its last update, allows you to play video games in the cloud —even some of the ones we have purchased—as long as we have a PlayStation Plus Premium subscription. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Ricardo AguilarHuawei, Google, Apple, Samsung, PlayStation In Xataka | The best mobile phones (2025), we have tested them and here are their analyzes In Xataka | Best laptops in quality price. Which one to buy based on use and seven recommended models

Huawei lost to Google, Qualcomm and TSMC. What he didn’t lose was something more important: his reputation.

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Last week were the Xataka Awards 2025. Stella Li, global vice president of BYD, took the Xataka Legend. He Galaxy S25 Ultra It swept the super high range. Freepik was crowned as best Spanish technology company. It was a night of proper names, drinks and conversations with readers. But There is a prize that, for those of us who spend a lot of time in Xatakaas workers or as readers, has a special weight. Not because of its glamour, but because of what it represents. The Community Award is not decided by any jury. There are no internal debates. You, the readers, decide with your votes. It is the device that you liked the most, without filters. In fact, it is the only one that is not delivered by any employee of the house, but rather by members of the community who represent it on stage. In the image that heads this article, three of them with Cristina Isidoro, PR Manager of Huawei in Spain, who collected the award. Because this year he won it Huawei Watch GT 6 Pro. And when I saw the result, I smiled slightly: it was more than just a reward for a well-made smartwatch. It was pure symbolism. Look at the historical list of winners of this award: Almost all, Chinese devices or devices with a Chinese soul that share a pattern: focus on value for money, practical innovation, and in some cases, arriving wanting to break molds. But among all of them, Huawei is the only one that did not arrive yesterday promising a lot for little. It is the only one that was already in the world elite, disputing the throne with Samsung and in fact about to snatch it awaybefore the United States decided to use it as a pawn in its trade war. Because Huawei has not conquered the perception of premium quality by offering more gigabytes for fewer euros. It conquered it by being, for years, simply a great option. He P20 Pro It was the first mobile phone with a triple camera that really worked. The Mate 20 Pro was an unapologetic technical beast compared to the high-end greats. Their MateBook laptops have been worthy rivals of the Surface. And their GT watches already stood out for batteries that lasted weeks when Apple asked for a charger every night. They weren’t cheap. They were good. And that difference, in the technology market, is abysmal. Then 2019 arrived. EntityList. American veto. Goodbye Google, goodbye Qualcomm, goodbye TSMC. Sales outside China plummeted and the Western narrative was unanimous: Huawei was dead. Without the Google ecosystem, without access to the supply chain, it was impossible to survive in this business. But no one explained to them that it was impossible. Instead of giving up, they built their own universe. HarmonyOS on more than a billion devices. Kirin Chips own, then Ascend for AI. Huawei Cloud growing in Asia, Africa and Latin America. They didn’t beg to go back to Google Play like we might perhaps have expected them to do. They simply built another entire ecosystem. Without one word higher than another. At the beginning of the month I was in China and was able to try several of their devices, including some that just left there. The premium feel is real. And something that we do have here, the GT 6 Pro, is not a gadget 150 euros that promises too much and falls halfway. It is a watch in the 400 euro range that performs very well. and the community of Xataka has passed sentence with his prize. That doesn’t happen by chance. Xiaomi shines in value for money. Realme and Oppo play there. Nothing has its aesthetic indie. But Huawei is the only Chinese brand that, when you mention it, the European consumer automatically thinks of “serious quality”, without the asterisks that others have. And she did it right after they tried to destroy her. The Huawei Watch GT 6 Pro is a great watch. But winning the 2025 Community Award means something else: It is the recognition of the only Chinese brand that has come out of the perception low cost without giving up its origin. It is the prize that, in a way, China had been pursuing for decades. Respect without conditions. And it has been won by a company that they tried to annihilate. Sometimes vetoes don’t kill. They forge legacies. Featured image | Xataka In Xataka | The LG OLED Signature AI T4 is the best television of the year for a simple reason: we are saying goodbye to the black monolith

The US vetoed NVIDIA’s most powerful chips in China. I didn’t count on an unexpected problem: Indonesia

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NVIDIA is at the center of the technological war between China and the United States. After the blockadethe US allowed the company sell a version of its H20 chips specific for the Chinese market, but the most powerful chips, The Blackwells are still banned in China. Or so we believed. What is happening. Donald Trump made it clear that he does not want China to have access to Blackwell chips, but despite the blockade, an investigation by the Wall Street Journal shows how there are Chinese companies benefiting from the computing power of these chips using legal shortcuts. The process. The investigation details the process that NVIDIA’s Blackwell chips go through until INF Tech, a Shanghai-based startup, uses the computing power. NVIDIA sells its chips to Aivres: Aivres is a Silicon Valley company partially owned by Inspur, a Chinese company that is on the US blacklist. NVIDIA could not do business with Inspur or its partners, but the blockade does not affect partners based in the US, as is the case with Aivres. Aivres sells the chips to Indonesia: specifically to an Indonesian communications provider called Indosat Ooredo Hutchison. The agreement includes the sale of 32 NVIDIA GB200 racks with 72 Blackwell chips each; more than 2,300 chips worth $100 million. Indonesia sells computing power to China: The end customer for this cloud computing power is INF Tech, which will use it to train AI in financial and medical research applications. This point is key as we will see later. Why it is important. The investigation calls into question the true effectiveness of US blockades and regulations. Using intermediaries in other countries, Chinese companies can manage to circumvent the restrictions and access the most powerful chips, all without violating the restrictions. Cracks. According to the Trump administration’s controls, the deal is legal as long as INF Tech does not use the chips to help the government with military intelligence applications or to develop weapons. However, it is difficult to know what it is actually being used for and in fact in the US there are suspicions that The Chinese government is leaning on the private sector to improve its military technology. Disagreement. If there is a crack, the logical thing would be to cover it. The Biden administration tried to tighten these rules to prevent chips from being sold to countries that are not close allies of the United States. This would have prevented the sale to the Indonesian company, but when Trump returned to power he decided not to go ahead with these new rules. Instead of the government controlling it, it should be the companies themselves. Interests. The US blockades seek to take advantage of China in the AI ​​technological race, all for reasons of “national security.” It is contradictory that they leave these cracks open through which these chips end up sneaking in legally. The one who thinks it’s great is NVIDIA. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, a company spokesperson came out in favor of Trump’s decision, saying that “Biden’s controls cost taxpayers tens of billions, paralyzed innovation and ceded ground to foreign rivals.” Image | NVIDIA, Pexels In Xataka | The Chinese government has taken a definitive step to break NVIDIA’s dominance in China: prioritize “national” chips

In case we didn’t have enough of the wedding fever, medieval weddings are coming

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In Yorkshire it smells like wax and fresh bread. Olivia Healy walks slowly down the aisle of a stone church; The golden crown she wears shines in the flickering light of the candles. There are no spotlights or screens, just an iron arch, a few caped guests, and a reverend who smiles before saying, “Welcome to the 12th century.” It is not the filming of a movie, but a wedding inspired by the medieval ceremonies that were celebrated in England eight hundred years ago. There are minstrelsy, a feast of mead and rye bread, and a vow of union that does not mention God, but “the light that unites the paths of the ancients.” According to The New York Timesscenes like this are repeated in half the world: searches for “medieval wedding” on Pinterest have skyrocketed by more than 400%, and castles have become the new fantasy setting for a generation that flees from conventional weddings. A ritual with purpose. What started as an eccentric niche has become a cultural trend. “Couples are looking for a more symbolic type of ceremony, less commercial and more connected to ancient rites,” explains art historian Nancy Thebaut. It is not just an aesthetic—capes, veils, chalices, robes—but a way of understanding love and commitment as something timeless. Some of the most talked about weddings of the year followed that thread. Artist Harley Weir, known for her ethereal portraits, married in a welsh monastery dressed in a tunic inspired by the novices of the 15th century. As well as actress Rainey Qualley opted for a lace corset and hand-embroidered cape in Italian silk, “like a Pre-Raphaelite queen lost in a digital dream.” In all cases, the pattern is the same: ritual, nature, spirituality. Instead of speeches or photocallsthere are processions with incense, sacred music, mystical readings and vows inspired by Celtic or early Christian ceremonies. The phenomenon goes beyond the disguise. This return to the past, according to the New York Timesaddresses an interpretation of “nostalgia for purposeful rituals”: a way of recovering the symbolic in times where the religious has been diluted. For the fashion magazine Vogue, which has documented Gothic and medieval weddings in Irish castles or Welsh monasteries, what is sought is not historical accuracy, but an emotional aesthetic. The medium calls it “epic romanticism”: a cross between the sacred, the theatrical and the intimate. The art historian Harriet Sonne de Torrens remember that in medieval manuscripts The gesture of joining hands represented mutual surrender and divine blessing. Eight centuries later, that same image is redefined: the symbol remains, although its meaning is secular. From historical rigor to pop romanticism. Not to nitpick, but most of these celebrations are not historically accurate—nor do I think they intend to be. “People confuse medieval with Renaissance, Gothic or even Victorian,” explains The New York Times. But that mix is ​​part of its appeal: today’s medieval weddings They are less a recreation of the past than a pop rereading of history. The success of series like game of Thrones either The Witcher, and even the literary rise of authors such as Sarah J. Maas or the anthological The Lord of the Ringshave consolidated a global aesthetic of the medieval-fantastic, which has filtered into fashion, music and, now, marriage. This medieval fever is not alone. In parallel, thematic weddings are growing: ceremonies that recreate entire worlds—from the 1920s to the Tolkien universe—as a form of aesthetic affirmation. According to Bodas.netmore than 30% of young couples in Spain opt for personalized and symbolic rituals, with their own scripts and narrative scenarios. In times of liquid loves, the ritual matters again. In the digital age, couples look for meaning in ancient symbols. Looking to the past has become a way of recovering intention and intimacy—what the New York media has defined as “a nostalgia for purposeful rituals.” And there opens up an interesting connection.. Because this fascination with the sacred is not limited to the symbolic altars of weddings. Religion—or at least its imagery—has once again become a transversal aesthetic language: from fashion to pop. Rosalía is the most notable example. As my colleague explains in Xataka“the artist has swerved towards Catholic iconography. It is not a whim or a marketing maneuver, but rather swimming in a very favorable current at the moment: the modern and youthful vindication of the faith.” This current is not a return to dogma, but a search for transcendence. Both Rosalía and medieval weddings, the sacred becomes aesthetic; the ritual, in performance. Candles, veils or liturgical choirs are gestures of a visual spirituality, more emotional than doctrinal. “Brides are attracted to historical references because they evoke permanence; it is a way of promising eternity in liquid times,” says designer Paula Nadal. My dear Spain. And, as almost always, here we take it to the next level. In Navia (Asturias), a couple got married this summer during the Medieval Days of the municipality, escorted by Knights Templar and bagpipers. In Burgos, several estates and castles—such as Sotopalacios or Belmonte— They already offer “historical ceremonies” with a mead menu, troubadours and photographers who work only with natural light to imitate the painterly texture of the Quattrocento. In networks, the Spanish “medieval core” mixes layers, baroque virgins and processions with a fervor that, according to Telva“can only be understood in a country that turned Holy Week into performative art.” In a way, medieval weddings are the secular reflection of that same religious theatricality that Spain carries in its blood: a liturgy without faith, but with emotion. A ritual in uncertain times? The trend points to the same thing: couples do not flee from the present, but rather look for a symbolic language. What we know is that in 12th century manuscripts, marriage was a sacrament; in the networks of 2025, it is an aesthetic. But the gesture remains the same. Between the digital noise and the contemporary rush, returning to the 12th century is just a way—I hope—to promise the same thing as always: that … Read more

There were thousands of mysterious holes lined up in Peru. We didn’t know why until a drone saw them from the air

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In the arid hills of Pisco Valleyin the south of Peru, extends a monument as mysterious as it is precise: a strip of almost a kilometer and a half made up of some 5,200 perfectly aligned cavities, known like Mount Sierpe or the Band of Holes. Discovered in 1931 by the geologist Robert Shippee and Lieutenant George R. Johnson during one of the first aerial expeditions over the Andes, the site baffled generations of archaeologists. Until now. A mysterious landscape. For decades, theories were proposed ranging from its defensive use to fog capture or water storage, but none of them quite fit. Now, a new study published in Antiquity provides a convincing hypothesis from a point of view that no one had valued: from the air. In this way, Mount Sierpe would have functioned as a accounting and barter system on a large scale, a kind of “spreadsheet” of the pre-Hispanic Andes. The geometry that speaks. The international team of researchers, led by archaeologist Jacob Bongers from the University of Sydney, used drones to map the site with millimeter precision. Aerial images revealed an organized structure into about 60 blocks or sections, each with distinct alignments and regular number patterns. Some areas show rows of nine by eight holesothers alternate between groups of seven and eight. This internal order, absent any defensive or agricultural logic, suggests an administrative purpose. Sediment analyzes extracted microscopic remains corn, totora and willow (plants traditionally used to make baskets and mats), which suggests that the cavities were lined with plant fibers and were used to store goods, possibly in packages or braided baskets. The holes of Mount Sierpe From local barter to administration. Researchers believe that Monte Sierpe was born as a space for exchange between highland and coastal communities, an organized market for balance the flow of goods in the absence of currency. Products (for example, corn, coca or cotton) could be deposited in each cavity as a visible representation of the value of one good compared to another, allowing quantities to be compared in a public and transparent manner. Centuries later, with the expansion of inca empirethat system would have been reinterpreted and expanded as an accounting tool to manage the tribute of local populations. Each block of holes would have corresponded to a different community group, and the variations in number and arrangement would reflect the contribution levels or work shifts required by the Inca State. In essence, Monte Sierpe would have been a physical data recorda stone matrix destined to organize the unwritten economy of the Andean world. A carved khipu. The most revealing finding is the similarity between the structure of the site and the Inca khipusthe rope systems with knots used to record censuses, taxes or resources. One of the khipus found near Pisco presents around 80 groups of lacesa figure surprisingly close to the 60 segments of Monte Sierpe. This correspondence suggests that the Band of Holes could have been a three-dimensional khipua monumental version of that woven numerical language, designed to coordinate the flow of goods and work between communities. Unlike the tablets or inscriptions of other civilizations, the Andean peoples turned geography itself into a support for information. Code in the desert. If you also want, Monte Sierpe redefines our understanding of pre-columbian organizational intelligence. Without writing, without currency and in a hostile environment, Andean societies managed to develop a visual, modular and mathematical method to represent their economy. Each hole would have been a cell a great living recordmanaged collectively, perhaps accompanied by ceremonies or ritual exchanges. Thus, in its apparent geometric simplicity, this “spreadsheet” carved into the rock reveals a advanced economic systembased on reciprocity and communal control of resources. What for the first explorers were simple rows of holes now emerge as the physical testimony of a civilization that, centuries before European contact, had already found its own way of turning the landscape into memory. Image | JL Bongers In Xataka | We have found 76 megatraps in the Andes. It’s amazing we hadn’t done it before. In Xataka | A secret room has just revealed how they ruled in Peru 2,000 years ago: with the help of drugs

Some say Mercury retrograde ruins their life, but the planet didn’t even move from its spot.

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Mercury retrograde season returns. From November 9 to 20, 2025, many people around the world – and especially on social networks– They will blame this curious planetary phenomenon for the argument they have had with their partner, the breakage of their refrigerator or the failure in an exam. But the question we must ask ourselves is if there is something behind this phenomenon that seems astronomical. What is ‘Mercury retrograde’. Despite its magical name, “Mercury retrograde” is described according to NASA as an optical effect: from Earth, Mercury (the planet closest to the Sun) appears to move backwards in its orbit for a few weeks. Astronomically, that “recoil” It is an illusion created by the difference in speed and position between Earth and Mercurybut nothing in the cosmos really changes, only our point of view. This is a phenomenon that occurs several times a year and has no physical effect on the Earth, our communications, travel or emotions. This is why astronomical science is clear: it is pure visual effect, not causality. Another interpretation. In the case of astrology the interpretation is very different. For this branch, Mercury is attributed powers over the communication, thought and movement. In this way, when it is ‘retrograde’, astrologers advise avoid signing contracts, taking trips or having difficult conversations. But this is something that has no scientific support behind it. A real meme. The interesting thing, according to experts in digital cultureis how Mercury retrograde has become a lifeline to cast our blame away. It is the perfect meme to explain everyday chaos: when WhatsApp crashes or the AI ​​responds strangely, the fault is not ours, but Mercury’s. In this way, everything stops being our fault, and for psychology it is something that we use as a strategy to attribute the disorder to external factors that reduce anxiety and connect us with the community. In countries like Spain, each Mercury retrograde cycle activates dozens of interactions on TikTok, Instagram and X, full of jokes, astrological advice and memes. This narrative allows us to find order (or at least, poetic meaning) in digital unpredictability. There is no relationship. Whether the computer or the refrigerator stops working or you have had a fight with your boyfriend or girlfriend has nothing to do with the position of Mercury. However, the myth and the joke will live on. Perhaps it is therapeutic to look to the sky for an answer when reality surpasses logic, even if we know that looking at the sky will not change whether our router breaks or not. Images | Wikipedia Afif Ramdhasuma In Xataka Basics | 19 apps and tools to see and have more information about stars and constellations

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