doubt

Astronomers have no doubt that there is extraterrestrial life. Mathematics says that it will take 1,500 years to find it

by

We have been sending signals to the cosmos for almost a century through high-power radio transmissions or even with military radars that exist around the entire planet. Little by little, humanity has been creating an electromagnetic “bubble” that expands at the speed of light, but unfortunately for some, we have not yet received a response to all these signals, and it is easy to fall into pessimism about the absence of other living beings beyond our atmosphere. The mathematics. The question here is not if we will connect with extraterrestrial intelligence, but when. And here the scientific community has great optimismsince the astronomical community is not based on UFO sightings, but on pure statistics. Here institutions like SETI They have been scanning the sky for decadesand although there is still no evidence of interference or signals of artificial origin, the conviction that we are not alone is stronger than ever. The bubble. To understand why scientists are so sure of this, you first have to look at the scale of the problem in our Milky Way, which is 100,000 light years across. This monstrous figure collides with our radio bubble that barely touches 100 light years, so on a galactic scale, we have not even crossed the street. This is where the famous Fermi paradox comes into play, which suggests that, if the universe is so vast and old, there should be someone around us, and that is why the question this researcher asked went down in history: where is everyone? The answer most supported by modern astrobiology is based on the “Mediocrity Principle”, an astronomical concept that maintains that there is nothing special about Earth and suggests that, if life arose here under certain physical and chemical conditions, it is statistically inevitable that it has arisen on a fraction of the billions of exoplanets that orbit habitable zones in our galaxy. Investigation continues. In 2016, an influential study from Cornell University put numbers to this paradox. To do this, the Drake equation was crossed with the expansion of our radio bubble with the aim of calculating how far our signal would have to travel to reach a sufficient number of stars to guarantee, by pure statistical probability, an answer. The result yielded a figure that has become a recurring reference in spatial dissemination: contact should not be expected before about 1,500 years. According to this mathematical model, for our signals to reach extraterrestrial ears requires that we cover at least half of the galaxy. Until then, it will seem like we are alone, even though the universe teems with life. Where do we look? While the 1,500-year clock continues to tick, scientists are not standing idly by, and that is why we have initiatives like SETI that they are not just looking to hear somethingbut to understand how we should listen to it. And for decades, the search for life has focused on very specific radio frequencies, highlighting the famous 1420 MHz hydrogen emission line, assuming that any advanced civilization would use that universal frequency to communicate. But… What if it’s not like that? New approaches aim to diversify the search towards broader technosignatures, since it is no longer just a matter of searching for an intentional “hello” in the form of a radio wave, but rather detecting electromagnetic pollution from other civilizations, the use of optical lasers for interplanetary communication, or even searching for signals at low-frequency radio frequencies that until now had been ignored or discarded by terrestrial interference. Images | Graham Holtshausen In Xataka | If we want to find extraterrestrial life, we already know where in space we should look: the “terminator zone”

In Japan there is no doubt that they live worse than 30 years ago. Houses are literally getting smaller.

by

The demographic crisis that drags Japan comes long. In 2024 we say that it is the great challenge of the nation, the same one that we could summarize with one fact: if we continue like this, By 2531 all its inhabitants will have the same last name. That’s why we have seen all kinds of ideas and proposalssome with more common sense than othersbut all with the idea of ​​raising birth rates and combating aging. Now there is another fact that aggravates the situation even more: the houses are smaller. The house shrinks. The data is official and comes from a study that is carried out every five years in the nation. The average housing space in Japan has reached its lowest level in 30 years, with an average of 90 square meters at the end of 2024three square meters less than the 2003 peak, according to the government study. The change reflects a trend towards reduction in the size of homes, evident in the last five years. Additionally, in both single-family homes and multi-family units, including rentals and condominiums. Multifamily, in particular, average only 50 square metersfive less than what the government considers adequate for two adults in urban areas. It’s the economy, friend. They counted on a report in Nikkei that the increase in construction costs, which has shot up 30% since 2015 in the country, is the main driver of this reduction of space in homes. To keep prices affordable and protect their profit margins, builders are downsizing homes, a practice known as “hidden price gouging.” Not only that. In addition, land prices in popular residential areas are also on the rise, which further aggravates the situation. This increase in prices has reduced the demand for larger, more expensive, personalized homes in favor of smaller, cheaper units. Impact on quality of life. It is another of the legs that slips from the problem. The reduction in living space creates discomfort, especially in small homes. For many people, like a 50-year-old woman who lives in a 30-square-meter apartment with her husband, the situation is described as suffocating. Even single-person homes, which They represent 38% of households according to the national censusare often considered too small for a comfortable lifestyle. And then there are young people, who face greater barriers to accessing larger homes, with prohibitive prices even on the second-hand market. Young people and birth rates. All this leads to what we indicated at the beginning. The reduced living space and the impossibility of purchasing larger homes discourage young couples from, for example, starting families, exacerbating the already worrying drop in the birth rate. Housing policies alone do not seem sufficient to reverse this trend, and experts such as Masayuki Takahashi emphasize that The key is to increase salaries in a sustained manner. During the period of high economic growth in Japan, rising wages allowed more people to access spacious housing, something that is not the case today. The elderly and housing. The housing problem goes much further. In fact, every time More seniors in Japan face difficulties renting housingeven if they have financial means. Cases like that of an 88-year-old man in Tokyo, who, with more than 100 million yen in savings after planning to sell his apartment, experienced multiple rejections for not being able to provide an emergency contact under 70 years of agea common requirement among homeowners in the nation. After four months of searching, he managed to find an apartment, but the case reflects a broader problem. Rent and the veto for older adults. According to 2020 census data, Japan had 6.7 million single-person households with residents aged 65 or older, accounting for 12% of the total. By 2030, it is estimated that this number will reach 8 million. Again, even though there are approximately 9.3 million of vacant homes, landlords’ reluctance to rent to seniors is a significant obstacle. In August 2025, the Ministry of Infrastructure published a survey specific about owners of the akiya which revealed that approximately 60% of these properties were inherited, with more than 70% built before 1980, and that more than 70% show signs of deterioration or damage. Reasons? 66% of landlords expressed reluctance to accept older tenants, in a ministry survey. The main fear: the risk of death of the tenant alone of which we have talked beforewhich can require costly cleanups and require reporting to future tenants for three years. This situation is worsened by the increasing loneliness of older people and the lack of close family members throughout the nation. Ultimately, and with official figures and data In hand, it does not seem that the housing problem in Japan has improved for three decades. In reality, and sticking to those numbers, houses are literally smaller and more expensive, both to buy and to rent. a problem that we see in many other nationswhere the practice of downsizing in homes to maintain competitive prices ends up affecting the stability of the real estate market and the residents’ own quality of lifewith special emphasis on the case of young people and the elderly. A version of this article was published in January 2025 Image | Ted McGrath In Xataka | Japan has known for many years the secret to cleaning dust less frequently at home In Xataka | If you thought that living in Japan was already a luxury, wait until you see the latest house signed by Aston Martin

For 45 years we thought we understood how stars like our Sun rotate. A Japanese supercomputer has just cast doubt on it

by

Understanding how stars rotate may seem like a technical detail, but it is actually a central piece to understanding their evolution. For 45 years, theoretical models held that Sun-like stars would eventually change the way they rotate as they aged. The idea was that, as it lost speed over billions of years, the spin pattern would reverse and the poles would rotate faster than the equator. Now, new research from Nagoya University suggests that that prediction might not come true. The findings. The work, published in Nature Astronomysuggests that solar-type stars could maintain the same rotation pattern that we observe in the current Sun throughout their lives. That is, the equator would continue to rotate faster than the polar regions even as the star slows down with age. The simulations carried out by the team indicate that magnetic fields play a decisive role and could prevent this regime change that was taken for granted in theoretical models for decades. How a star like the Sun actually rotates. Unlike the Earth, which rotates as a solid body, the Sun is made of extremely hot plasma. That causes different regions to spin at different speeds. In the case of the Sun, the equator completes one revolution approximately every 25 days, while the regions near the poles take about 35 days. This phenomenon is known as solar-type differential rotation. For decades, theoretical simulations predicted that this pattern would not be permanent. As stars age and their global rotation slows over billions of years, the plasma flows within them should reorganize. Predictions indicate that there would come a time when the behavior would be reversed: the equator would rotate more slowly and the poles would rotate faster, a regime that the researchers called differential anti-solar rotation. The unexpected role of magnetism. The new simulations suggest that the scenario predicted by theoretical models for decades may not come to pass. According to the results of the study, stars similar to the Sun would maintain the same type of differential rotation throughout their lives. Even if the star slows down with age, the equator would continue to rotate faster than the poles, rather than reversing the pattern as proposed in previous simulations. A supercomputer on stage. To reach that conclusion, the team turned to FugakuJapan’s most powerful supercomputer, installed at the RIKEN research center in Kobe and operational for shared use since March 2021. With its help, researchers carried out an extremely detailed simulation of the interior of solar-type stars. Each simulated star was divided into about 5.4 billion calculation points, a much higher resolution than that used in previous work. This level of detail is important because previous simulations worked at much lower resolutions. Under these conditions, the magnetic fields tended to disappear artificially within the model, which led to underestimating their influence on the internal dynamics of the star. In the new simulation, however, the magnetic fields remained stable and showed a clear effect: they help prevent the reversal of the rotation pattern. The implications. Understanding more precisely how Sun-like stars rotate is key to interpreting their magnetic activity over time. This aspect is related to well-known phenomena on our own star, such as the approximately 11-year solar cycle that regulates the appearance of sunspots and episodes of magnetic activity. A better understanding of these processes could also help improve stellar evolution models used by astronomers to study distant stars. Images | POT In Xataka | PLD Space has raised 180 million euros with Mitsubishi at the helm: the Spanish space startup grows with Japanese money

the Webb telescope has just clarified a key doubt

by

There are asteroids that go almost unnoticed and others that force us to look at them much more carefully. 2024 YR4 belongs to that second group. When it was discovered at the end of 2024, the first calculations of its trajectory still had enough margin of error to contemplate a very small possibility of impact with Earth. That scenario was soon ruled out, but, as ESA explainsthe case remained under follow-up for a different reason: a doubt was left open about the Moon which was not resolved until new observations arrived. Impact risk. With data available since spring 2025, trajectory models indicated that the asteroid had about a 4% chance of hitting the Moon on December 22, 2032, an estimate that NASA placed at 4.3% in its previous calculations. It was not a high percentage, but it was significant enough for the teams dedicated to monitoring near-Earth objects to follow it with special attention. Furthermore, we are talking about an object of about 60 meters. How Webb came into play. To clear up that doubt, something more than the usual telescopes was needed. An international team of astronomers identified two very specific windows in February 2026 in which the James Webb Space Telescope could try to detect the asteroid, which at that time was just an extremely faint point millions of kilometers away. It involved using one of the most complex scientific instruments built to date to locate an almost invisible object and measure its position with the necessary precision to project its orbit almost seven years into the future. Key piece. The observations were made on February 18 and 26, 2026 with the camera NIRCam of the James Webb telescope. From these images, astronomers compared the position of the asteroid with that of the background stars, whose coordinates are known with great precision thanks to ESA’s Gaia mission. ESA adds a relevant detail to understand why this went ahead: the planning and analysis was coordinated with ESA’s Near-Earth Object Coordination Center, NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies and the Webb mission team. With this new data package, the orbital models were adjusted enough to close the mystery. James Webb analyzed the position of the asteroid in relation to the background stars The flyby distance. With the new calculations, monitoring teams can now estimate quite accurately what the asteroid’s passage through the lunar environment will be like. According to NASA, it will pass on December 22, 2032 about 21,000 kilometers from the surface of the Moon. That range is enough to eliminate the impact scenario that had been on the table for months. In other words, the object will continue on its way through the solar system without hitting either the Moon or Earth. Surveillance doesn’t stop. Programs such as ESA’s Space Security or NASA’s tracking systems continue to detect and analyze near-Earth objects to anticipate any possible future threats. The logic is simple: the sooner a potentially dangerous object is identified, the more room there will be to study its trajectory and assess the real risk. In this case, the result has been reassuring, but it also illustrates, as ESA insists, what planetary defense means in practice when a doubt is resolved with more data and better measurements. Images | THAT In Xataka | We have been burning space junk for years to get rid of the problem. It turned out to be a bad idea

It was so good that it made us doubt the Nazis

by

When ‘Starship Troopers’ hit theaters in 1997, most audiences expected a light science fiction adventure, perhaps a late heir to the spirit from ‘Star Wars’. What he received was something very different: a film that opened with a propaganda advertisement that was as brilliant as it was disturbing, an exercise in political satire so sharp that many viewers and critics interpreted it backwards. The satire that nobody wanted to see. Director Paul Verhoeven, a European marked by memories of the Nazi occupation and obsessed with dissecting American authoritarianism, conceived from the beginning a work that did not talk about insects or space battles, but about the way in which an apparently democratic society can slide towards militarization, fascism and blind obedience. That inaugural announcement It was not a simple aesthetic resource: it was the thesis of the film compressed into seconds, a direct adaptation of Nazi propaganda filmed by Leni Riefenstahla mirror held out to the viewer so that they could recognize, in the imposed enthusiasm of the young recruits, the mechanisms that make any totalitarianism possible. Fascist future and pop aesthetics. Verhoeven departed from an uncomfortable premise: the Heinlein novelthe basis of the film, was essentially a militaristic text that treated citizenship as a privilege linked to armed service. Instead of softening that vision, he decided to exaggerate it to the point of absurdity, turning his protagonists into stylized versions of the Aryan heroes that Riefenstahl immortalized in ‘Triumph of the Will’. The casting, in fact, was a ideological decision: young, perfect faces, with square jaws, that fit with Nazi iconography so that the viewer, even if they did not recognize it immediately, felt the disturbing familiarity of a historically charged aesthetic. The recruitment announcement (soldiers looking at the camera, declaring “I’m doing my part”) replicated shot by shot the exaltation of duty and obedience of Third Reich propaganda. What on the surface seemed like a visual joke was actually the key to deciphering the entire tone of the film. Let’s see the sequence: The smile that hides the horror. In reality, the false advertisements that Verhoeven had employed already in ‘RoboCop’ and ‘Total Recall’ acted as windows to societies that they represented: board games that trivialized nuclear war, holiday campaigns that promised false lives to evade one’s own. In ‘Starship Troopers’, that language found its final form. The initial announcement shows military victories, a dehumanized enemy and an army enveloped in enthusiasm. The satire, however, lies not in the excess, but in how easy it is for that excess to seem normal. The most disturbing detail (the joyful presence of children in a war environment, collaborating in the propaganda machine) underlines that the fascist ideal does not need explicit violence to function: it is enough to normalize indoctrination from childhood, it is enough to turn war into entertainment and obedience into a virtue. Verhoeven does not show the children being hurt; That emptiness is part of the message, since it points to a future in which they will inevitably also be sacrificed by that same patriotic logic. The original misunderstanding. The premiere of ‘Starship Troopers’ was received with a misunderstanding which today is almost legendary. There were editorials that they even accused Verhoeven and his screenwriter Ed Neumeier of making neo-nazi propaganda. The public, expecting a heroic blockbuster, found a film that laughed at their expectations and that, by showing perfect and enthusiastic heroes, posed the question that no one wanted to hear: what the hell happens when those who seem like heroes represent a morally rotten ideal? The announcement was main trigger of that rejection. His advertising tone, his energy youthits aesthetics cleancaused many to take it literally, unable to perceive that the exaggeration did not glorify war, but rather ridiculed it. Verhoeven, surprised by the misunderstanding, I would remember years later that even actor Neil Patrick Harris appeared in the film dressed in a uniform that evoked that of the SS. And yet, the satire went unnoticed by much of the American public. The advertisement as a masterpiece. Today, with the passage of time, the advertisement inside ‘Starship Troopers’ It is considered a masterpiece of political satire. It works on several simultaneous levels: it pays homage to the cinematic form of Nazi propaganda, parodies American recruiting rhetoric, exposes the ease with which television and advertising language can legitimize dangerous ideas, and serves as an entry point into a universe where war It is spectacle and the enemy. Verhoeven knew that the key to authoritarianism is not explicit repression, but in seductionin the construction of that heroic story that makes desirable what should be disturbing. That is why the advertisement is, in my opinion, so accurate: because it is not a crude parody, but rather a perfectly functional piece of propaganda within the narrative universe itself, capable of deceiving even those who see it from the outside. Reality slap. If you like, the ‘Starship Troopers’ announcement is not just a spectacular introduction, it is the film’s manifesto. If the director had explained his satire through explicit speech, the play would have lost its edge. Instead, he chose a recognizable format (the ad of a lifetime) to show how an entire society can embrace militarism almost without realizing it… and we don’t have to go very far to recognize it currently. Riefenstahl’s conscious copy did not seek to honor, but to denounce, and the luminous aesthetic did not seek to beautify, but to make uncomfortable. In the end, humor did not even seek to entertain, but rather to arouse the viewer’s suspicion. And in that contrast lay the genius of the advertisement: forcing us to ask ourselves a question that, for years, many avoided asking. And if we don’t recognize ourselves in that mirror, maybe (like Verhoeven himself hinted) is because we are uncomfortable with how close fictional propaganda can be to contemporary realities. Image | TriStar Pictures In Xataka | In 1975 a party ended on the beach. What happened next was so chilling that people … Read more

dealers doubt 20 days after its application

by

It was presented on December 4 and promises to be active on January 2, 2026. That day, if everything goes ahead, we will be able to go to the dealership, commit our electric car and see a discount on the final bill. That, at least, is what was promised the day the Auto+ Plan was presented. The last to doubt this: the dealers. The presentation. It’s been eight days since The Auto+ Plan was presenteda purchase assistance program framed within the Auto Plan 2030a transversal strategy to promote the electric car and general improvements in the mobility of our country. The star measure: direct discounts on the purchase of electric cars. It is a decision that meets the demands of buyers and manufacturers who have been asking for this measure for years to encourage the expansion of this type of vehicles. And it is that, with the MOVES III Plan and in all previous editions, the delivery of aid was delayed in some cases by up to 18 months. many doubts. Despite the announcement, many doubts remained floating in the air: It is not known how much aid for electric cars will amount to. It is not known if the aid will also cover the purchase of plug-in hybrids. It is not known if the aid will have to be declared in the income tax return, although if it is applied as a discount to the purchase it is likely that this will not be the case. It has been announced that Aid from the MOVES III Plan will be covered that have not been entered but it has not been clarified how long we are talking about. To be restless. When this Auto+ Plan was announced we could expect that all agents were aware and had agreed. Much more so if we take into account that there are 20 days left until the new purchase aid is available. But the truth is that dealers are revealing their doubts. According to The Economistthe concessionaires are negotiating with the Ministry of Industry the delivery of the aid but they have a red line: they will not advance the aid. From Xataka We have contacted Faconauto, the dealer association in Spain, but they have refused to comment on the matter. The problem, they point out from the media, is that the concessionaires do not have sufficient financial health to advance the money if the State extends its subsequent income. According to data from Facoauto itself, the profitability of the sector is only 1.38% and three out of every ten dealerships are in losses. The Valencian case. One of the proposals that had been put on the table was to act the same as with the Restart Auto+ Plan when Up to 10,000 euros in aid were offered for buyers of an electric car after the DANA in Valencia. The objective was to take advantage of the forced renewal of the automobile fleet with the delivery of electric cars. Then we worked with the idea that the aid money would be deducted from the total payment for the vehicle. However, the bureaucracy made an appearance again to the point that some dealers advanced aid to customers with a discount on the purchase at the expense of their request being later approved but without prior acceptance through. In The Economist They point out that the dealers remember that this way of acting was only carried out by some brands, delivering the car before having approval for help. Furthermore, they remember that the Valencian case was exceptional and that it is difficult for something similar to be applied on a state level if they do not have the State’s commitment to deliver aid in a short period of time. 20 days left. Now, with this position of the concessionaires in front of us, the Government has less than three weeks to negotiate aid that was announced for January 2, 2026. A complex situation that is reminiscent of the last extensions of the MOVES III Plan. It must be remembered that in February 2024the Government has already promised to provide aid for the purchase of electric cars with a discount on the contract. Throughout that year, this possibility was delayed until the renewal of the MOVES III Plan arrived with the same conditions as always. That same aid program fell when meeting within the Omnibus Decree lying by the Congress of Deputies despite being announced and active. Months later, in April 2025, the MOVES III Plan came back… with the same problems as always. That is, with a management that left the client at the expense of collecting the aid until 18 months had passed in some cases. Photo | Robin Le Mee and Mohamed B. In Xataka | The best time to buy a “cheap electric car” will be never: at least that’s what Skoda thinks

If the question is whether they can geolocate you during your work day and use it to fire you, justice leaves no doubt: yes

by

Know that your company knows where are you every minute of your workday can generate discomfort and even doubts about its legality. However, the courts have been clarifying this area for some time. A recent ruling by the Superior Court of Justice of Asturias does so with unusual forcefulness. The case involves an elevator maintenance technician and an application time control which recorded, in addition to his schedule, the exact point from which he clocked in. What seemed like a routine tool ended up becoming the key to a disciplinary dismissal which today is fully validated by justice. Schedule control with advanced features. As detailed in the sentence issued by the Social Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Asturias, a maintenance employee of an elevator company used a time control application installed on the corporate mobile. His function was simple: mark the beginning and end of his day and do it from the place where he attended to each incident. The company distributed the routes on a daily basis and registration had to be done at the customer’s location, not from another point. However, the employee’s workday began to show strange patterns. In one month, the company detected up to 11 outbound signings made from the employee’s home and coinciding with work hours. The record indicated that, instead of closing his last intervention from the customer’s location, the technician finished his day on time, but already at home. Notices, warnings… and a disciplinary dismissal. The company did not act immediately. Before the dismissal, he issued several internal warnings to the worker and reminded him of the operation of the application, pointing out the irregularities detected and reminding him the obligation to sign from each real location. Even so, the signings from home continued, so the company interpreted that the agreed working day was being breached. Finally, he proceeded to the disciplinary dismissal, considering it proven that the technician ended his day prematurely and from a place outside the workplace. The Social Chamber of the TSJA confirmed the decision of disciplinary dismissal and validated the use of geolocation as evidence. What the law says. The TSJA ruling is based on the article 20.3 of the Workers’ Statutewhich specifies “the employer may adopt the surveillance and control measures he deems most appropriate to verify compliance by the worker with his or her work obligations and duties.” Therefore, and given the mobility nature of the position, the time control system with geolocation was justified. In addition, Organic Law 3/2018 on Data Protection (LOPDGDD) specifically regulates geolocation systems. Your article 90 requires clear information about the existence of these systems, their purpose, the scope of the processing and data protection rights. In this case, the app was corporate, the device belonged to the company, the worker knew how it worked, and the application only recorded the location when the application was opened. Taking all these regulations into account, the TSJA considered that the company acted within the law and used a proportional tool, linked to strictly labor purposes and correctly communicated to the employee. Time nuances. He Workers Statute It also precisely delimits when the day begins and ends. Article 34.5 establishes that “working time will be calculated so that both at the beginning and at the end of the daily shift the worker is at his or her workplace.” This is where we have to differentiate workplace and job position. It is not a minor nuance: effective working time begins when one is operationally available to perform the assigned functions. This does not mean that the employee must arrive at the workplace at the agreed time, but rather that he must be at his workplace at that time. If there are 10 minutes from the company entrance to your position and you arrive at the work center at your agreed time, you would be arriving 10 minutes late. The same applies at departure time. That employee must remain at his position until the agreed time, and then collect his things and leave the company. If you are leaving the company premises at the agreed time at the end of the day, you would be leaving 10 minutes early. The only exception to the rule: there is no job to go to. The Supreme Court has recognized a relevant exception: When the company does not have offices, premises or any physical space where workers can start their day, the employee’s home can be considered a valid starting point for the day. This doctrine applies especially to completely decentralized companies whose workers only move from client to client. In these situations (well accredited and exceptional), the travel time from home to the first client can be counted as workbecause the home assumes the function of the only available operating point. But as long as there is a work center or a clearly defined place where the activity can begin, this exception does not apply. Clocking in from home, as in the case of the Asturias elevator technician, is not justified and is a non-compliance with working hours. In Xataka | Breakfast and the first 15 minutes of entry are work: the Supreme Court sets the limits of time control Image | Unsplash (Kevin Grieve)

Images no longer mean that something was real. Welcome to the era of permanent visual doubt

by

There was a time, probably less than a year ago, when you saw a picture on the Internet and simply believed it. You didn’t stop to analyze it, or look for its context. You didn’t think “is it real?”, you simply processed it as information, and moved on. That moment will not return. We no longer talk about deepfakes very hardworking people who deceive some journalist (of that We already warned seven years ago). We are talking about something much more banal and therefore more devastating: Your brother-in-law can create a photo in three seconds of you, completely drunk, at a bachelor party you never went to. Your ex can fabricate a photo of you in a pose you never had. A student can generate a compromising image of his or her teacher during the transition between classes. The question is no longer whether the technology is good enough. It is perfect, we are seeing it with several tools and with the recently launched Nano Banana Pro to the head. In fact, it’s too perfectto. And perhaps for the first time, technical perfection has come before social perfection. Who is capable of seeing the photo on the right and assuming that neither the woman nor the waiter nor the bar actually exist? Let’s go having to learn to do something different from what we have been doing all our lives: learn not to be able to trust our eyes. Our entire epistemology—from court testimony to family photo albums—rests on a simple principle: seeing is a way of knowing. Not perfect, but sufficient: For 300,000 years of human evolution, if you saw a tiger, there was a tiger. For 199 years of photography, if you saw an image of a tiger, someone had been close to a tiger. That chain just broke. And it doesn’t break little by little, with warnings and an adaptation period. It breaks suddenly, on any given Tuesday, when you discover that the viral photo you shared was fake and you ate it without hesitation. Or worse: when you discover that everyone has assumed that the real photo you shared is actually fake. What we are losing is not the ability to distinguish what is real from what is fake. That got complicated a long time ago. What we are losing is something more primary: the possibility of operating under the assumption that the visual is, by default, a reasonable starting point. There’s the catch. for a decade we become obsessed with fake news. We were worried about Russian bots, troll farms or organized disinformation. All that was industrial. It cost a lot of money, left footprints and required coordination. What Nano Banana Pro brings is different. It is artisanal misinformation, common at home. You don’t need an authoritarian government or a budget behind it. You just need a smartphone, whatever it is. We could combat industrial misinformation with fact-checkers and media literacy. How do you combat the fact that each person is now a printing press for alternative realities? How do you verify 10 billion images daily? You can’t. The least obvious consequence is the most devastating: we are going to beg for a lock next to our real photos. If anyone can make any image, only those with verifiable certification will matter. Encrypted metadata, digital chain of custody, institutional authenticity seals. Anything, but something. The photo without a stamp will be suspicious by default. Who is going to offer that certification? Google, Meta, Apple, maybe governments. The only institutions with resources to verify on that scale. We are going to pay them for something that has been free for two centuries: the presumption that what was photographed existed. Because the alternative – a world where no one can be sure of anything – is simply unlivable. But The worst thing is not losing confidence in the images. It is losing confidence in memory. Your brain doesn’t store experiences, it stores reconstructions. And every time you remember something, you reconstruct it with the help of fragments: smells, emotions, images. Photographs have been crutches for memory for decades. They consolidated the rest of the memory. And then there is exhaustion. Every image you see now requires a little evaluation. Is it real? Do I verify it before sharing it? Will I look like a tolili if I send her to the group? Another tab for our internal CPU. Our parents never had to do this cognitive work. We are going to spend the rest of our lives in suspicion mode. Not because they are cynical, but because they are rational. That permanent suspicion has a cost. In attention, in mental energy. Perhaps in a capacity for wonder. In the possibility of seeing something extraordinary and simply believing it. Never again. There is hardly a solution for this: You can’t train an AI to detect AI-generated images perfectly: it’s an infinite arms race. Each detector upgrades the generators. Each generator improves the detectors. Each higher wall is an incentive to lengthen the pole. You can’t educate people to “think critically” on each of the thousands of images it processes per day. We don’t have bandwidth. and nor you can legislate the problem because technology is faster than the law and more accessible than any prohibition. The only thing left is adaptation. Cultural and psychological. Our grandparents trusted what they saw. We trusted what was photographed. Our children are not going to trust anything that does not come certified. Maybe the blockchain It was also invented for this. AND When everything needs verification, nothing can be spontaneous. When every image is suspect, none is memorable. When reality requires constant authentication, we stop inhabiting it naturally. Photography died the day it became indistinguishable from the imagination. We will continue taking photos and we will continue seeing them. But They will no longer do what they did for two centuries: tell us what was real. Welcome to the era of permanent visual doubt. In Xataka | There is a generation … Read more

Although they work, they leave a disturbing doubt

by

They are the medications of the moment and without a doubt the golden goose of the pharmaceutical industry. Drugs like Ozempicthe Wegovy or the Mounjaro have proven to be a very effective weapon to achieve significant weight losses in patients, which undoubtedly makes them very attractive for those people who suffer from obesity. The problem is that since they are so recent, we do not know exactly their long-term adverse effects. And this is a serious problem. Although these drugs are currently available on the market, science has the obligation to continue investigating their effectiveness and also the long-term side effects. Therefore, three new and exhaustive Cocharne scientific reviewsrequested by the WHO itself, confirm it: they work and they achieve significant weight loss, although there is then a rebound effect. But beyond this there are several problems that surely are not discussed as much. The same reviews as praise its effectiveness They issue a strong warning: strong involvement of pharmaceutical companies in practically all of the studies analyzed raises serious concerns. The evidence on long-term safety, side effects and how financial ties might be influencing outcomes remains, according to the researchers, “limited or uncertain.” Side A. The analysis done by Cochrane evaluated three of the main agonists of the GLP-1 receptor. These drugs, which were originally intended for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, mimic a natural hormone that our body secretes, GLP-1. By increasing their concentration, what is achieved is that the patient you feel full for much longerand therefore do not eat as much food. The results of these drugs are really positive. The undisputed star is Mounjaro, which managed to reduce on average 16% of body weight after taking it after 12 to 18 months. But Ozempic, which is undoubtedly the most famous, is not far behind, since it reduces weight by around 11% in a period of 24 to 68 weeks, and the most important thing is that the effect persists for two years. Side B. Throughout the research, several blind spots emerge that are sometimes not counted, as patients are left with almost miraculous weight loss. And taking it is not a bed of roses, as it has side effects such as nausea or digestive discomfort which are very frequent. But also, and this is key, the studies found practically no difference between the drugs and the placebo in terms of major cardiovascular events, mortality or quality of life. That is, with current evidence, they make you lose weight, but there is no evidence that they make you live longer or be happier. Conflicts of interest. This is the central point of the warning issued by the scientific review, since they have seen that most of the studies in the reviews were financed by the companies that manufacture the drugs themselves, so there may be a significant bias in the results. It cannot be logically compared to the results offered by completely independent results, which is what this review demands. Great unknowns. As we say, these drugs are known to have a short-term effect, which is significant weight reduction. But the question it raises is… What will happen in the future among patients who take it regularly? This is where a lot of data is still missing. These are the effects we know as ‘Type C Adverse Drug Reactions’. Precisely because they are chronic. There are very clear examples, such as that benzodiazepines produce long-term tolerance or dependence. Additionally, most trials were conducted in middle- and high-income countries, with little or no representation from regions such as Africa, Central America, or Southeast Asia. Because body composition and diet vary globally, the authors caution that it is not known how these drugs will work in more diverse populations. A bittersweet taste. GLP-1 drugs are promising, but the scientific basis on which clinical and policy decisions are based is largely built by their own manufacturers. This is also added to the need to wait for possible long-term complications to arise that determine the non-recommendation of using this treatment. But this is not something that stops countries from betting on this treatment as is the case in the United States where Donald Trump reached an agreement with different pharmaceutical companies to reduce the price of these medications by a good percentage with the aim of making them more accessible. Images | David Trinks In Xataka | Someone gave Gemini 1.5 a video of him exercising. He is capable of becoming a personal trainer

Russia has launched its Zircon hypersonic missile at NATO doors. And he has accompanied him with a video so that there is no doubt

by

Just a week ago, Russia launched the Greater order to Europe From the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine when entering a swarm of drones in the airspace of Poland. Europe’s response was overwhelming, but nobody escaped then that it was produced at the doors of the Zapad 2025the military exercises that Moscow shares with Belarus and that suppose another headache. How much? For example, the size of a hypersonic missile. Demonstration of power. Because Russia has sent an unequivocal message of strength within the framework of those joint maneuvers. From the Frigate Admiral Golovko, deployed in the Barents Sea, the nation He has disseminated images of the launch of your hypersonic missile 3m22 Zirconcapable of reaching white 1,000 kilometers and traveling to Mach 9. The projectile successfully hit its goal, According to the Ministry Russian defense, reinforcing the narrative that, despite the enormous losses accumulated in more than three years of war in Ukraine, it continues to have strategic abilities that few rivals can counteract. He Video showed In addition the participation of hunting Sukhoi Su-34capable of transporting up to eight tons of weapons and covering long distances without replenishment. The inclusion of such high profile armament in an exercise that develops a few kilometers from NATO borders has been interpreted as a calculated provocation rather than a simple defensive trial. Zircon and his use in Ukraine. The Zircon, along with The Kinzhalis one of the hypersonic missiles that Russia has used in Attacks against Ukraine. Its combination of extreme speed and limited maneuvering capacity makes it a target practically impossible For current air defense systems, generating a sense of vulnerability in both Ukrainian cities and among neighboring countries. Although its operational deployment remains reduced, the dissemination of its impact on a naval exercise seeks Clear answers. The signal is evident: Russia maintains the initiative in the field of new generation weapons, and wants to demonstrate it right in the perimeter where the alliance concentrates Your most sensitive flank. Zircon against China and USA. The Russian missile is a naval HCM that, flying low With Scramjetrun high energy terminal profiles suitable against ships and, a priori, certain land targets. His Achilles heel is not so much the missile and the objective beyond the horizon, which requires reliable cueing by satellite/plane/helo/uav. Faced with this, the Chinese DF-17 Use a hypersonic planner about ballistic booster to overcome defenses with lateral lifting maneuvers (Cross-ngege), while Your DF-27 Expand strategic scope with longer time. For its part, the United States pursues a mix: Hacm (Air-respirate, integration in fighters) for rapid theatrical attacks and CPS (common glide-body with the army) for conventional long-range blows from stealthy maritime platforms. Zirkon Zircon in front of the old continent. Europe accelerates Planning technology (France) and prioritizes interception in planning phase With GPI. In interception, AEGIS/SM-6 It offers the only Western capacity today “On Call” (limited and highly dependent on geometry), while GPI seeks to “paste” the glider when it has not yet descended to its terminal sprint, increasing the successful window. Be that as it may, in all cases the key is not only the missile: it is the sensor chain, the data link and the decision latency for close the cycle “Find-Fix-Track-Target-Engage-Assass” before the vector cross the non-return threshold. About drones and how to answer. As we said at the beginning, the launch of the Zircon coincided with an increase in tension after Drones incursions Russians in Poland’s airspace and RomaniaNATO members. On September 10, Warsaw denounced the entrance of at least 19 devices, demolished by allied fighters, in what described as “Unprecedented violation” and “large -scale provocation.” Three days later, a Russian drone was detected in Romanian territory, reviving the alarms. Poland invoked article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which establishes an urgent consultation mechanism between partners to agree on joint measures. From that debate the Eastern Sentinel operationwhich contemplates the deployment of advanced fighters, antimile defenses and military reinforcements in Eastern Europe. NATO He reacted quicklyaware that the escalation of provocations, although without direct damage, is a direct challenge to its credibility as a safety guarantor. Provocation or accident. Versions about incursions They have varied. Moscow ensures that the drones had no Poland target and that they could deviate, while Belarus suggests trajectory failures. However, both NATO and the United States consider that they were Deliberate launcheswith the aim of testing allied patience and giving up western responses. The US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, described the facts of “unacceptable, unfortunate and dangerous.” The contradiction between Russian justifications and the forcefulness of Western reactions reinforces the perception that it was a political pressure trial rather than a technical error. An unstable scenario. Thus, the combination of exercises Zapad 2025he Zircon launch or drone raids In NATO space They draw a scenario of increasing instability in Eastern Europe. Although Russia and Belarus insist on the defensive nature of their maneuvers, the location of these operations and the nature of the employee armaments transmit the opposite: a willingness to intimidate and demonstrate that the Kremlin retains the ability to challenge NATO on their own borders. The result points to a new tension cycle, where each military gesture acquires an immediate political reading and where the possibility of unplanned incidents (although with climbing potential) is multiplied dangerously. Image | Russian Defense Ministry, минобороны рф In Xataka | Russia and the most fearsome weapon for Ukraine: it is called Orbit and does not shoot, but turns its soldiers into “invisible” In Xataka | Someone has taken a look at Russia’s satellite images and has discovered something: it is running out of tanks

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.