evidence

It is the oldest documented evidence of psychedelics in America

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Humanity has been using drugs all its life. In fact, some of the oldest evidence dates back to 15,000 BC in Morocco. from Ephedra seeds or the mushrooms that they represented in cave paintings in Algeria in 9,000 BC or the use of hallucinogens derived from the San Pedro cactus in the Andes since at least 8,600 BC. But it is one thing to find remains of the plant and quite another to find chemical proof that our ancestors used drugs. What started in the 70s as a chance find of two pipes made of bones with traces of a hallucinogen has become, after decades of research, the oldest and most sophisticated direct chemical evidence of the use of hallucinogens in all of America. Context. We travel to 2100 BC, to the Preceramic period. The setting is the Puna of Jujuy, a high mountain plateau located in the extreme northwest of the Argentine Republic, which borders Bolivia and Chile. They lived there in caves such as Inca Cueva or Antofagasta de la Sierra groups of hunters and gatherers. The environment was extreme in terms of dryness and salinity, which has helped the organic materials to endure until today. Finally, it is worth mentioning the cebil (Anadenanthera macrocarpa), a leguminous plant whose seeds contain bufotenine, a tryptamine alkaloid with hallucinogenic effects that can be inhaled or smoked with a structure similar to the DMT family. The discovery. In the first site, in Inca Cueva and dated 2130 BC, two tubular bone pipes hidden in a cache without associated human remains. Inside there were remains of charring. Around it, remains of cebil and complete paraphernalia with decorated pumpkins and some bone spatulas to dose the hallucinogen. Their chemical analysis detected an alkaloid, N,N-dimethyltryptamine. At the Huachichocana site and dated 1450 BC, four stone pipes framed within a funeral trousseau of a young man, with other elements such as rattles or turtle shells. Chemical analysis is positive for alkaloids but negative for cebil. Pre-Columbian alkaloid trafficking. Was there cebil at 3,860 meters high? No, and that is one of the most striking things from the paper by Fernández Distel: Someone had taken him there. They sent young people to look for the cebil among tribes in the east of Salta in the summer months, when the fruit ripens. Your subsequent review contextualizes it: It was integrated into a broader transportation system that included other products such as feathers or fruit from the lowlands, hundreds of kilometers away. And the bone pipes did not come from humans, as they first hypothesized, but from pumas. Why is it important. Because Inca Cueva is the oldest record with direct chemical evidence in America for tryptamine hallucinogens, long before the from Chavín de Huántar in Peru. The paraphernalia of this site makes it clear that this was an elaborate ritual protocol, not something improvised or occasional. And the previous point shows the existence of long-distance trade networks, seasonal planning and advanced botanical knowledge. The hallucinogen was a precious commodity. The funerary context of Huachichocana is associated by Fernández Distel with a high mountain ritual, with the consideration of the deceased as a “shaman.” However, Torres reveals that consumption was a practice integrated into society: approximately 20% of men buried in some cemeteries in northern Chile took their hallucinogenic kit to the grave. How they did it. With excavations that took place between 1971 and 1976 with financing from CONICET and the University of Buenos Aires. The chemical analysis of the contents of the pipes was done using thin layer chromatography and in 1979, there was a second phase with gas chromatography. Thus, they detected seven peaks of plant alkaloids in Huachichocana that they could not identify. To date the remains they used Carbon 14. There are still many mysteries. That the Inca Cueva pipes appeared without human remains implies that we do not know who used them or under what circumstances. We also do not know why they used holes for pipes and not other elements. And although we know more or less what they consumed, there are still unknowns such as the recipes for their mixtures. In Xataka | The new era of psychedelia: how some “recreational” drugs want to help us with our mental health In Xataka | The most amazing data on drug consumption in Europe Cover | Christopher Walker and fr0ggy5

Meta was building its AI chips to not be dependent on NVIDIA. Has ended up surrendering to the evidence

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Meta faces a crucial year. While its competitors were laying the foundations for AI, Meta was burning money in the metaverse. That, along with a totally different approach to what Google or OpenAI were doing with AI, caused Zuckerberg’s company to pass a few years in the gutter. After reorganizing the house and sign the AI ​​A-TeamMeta was preparing so much a great model as new own chips for training. The thing… hasn’t turned out as expected. MTIA. Within the different Meta teams focused on artificial intelligence, there is one known as MTIA. It comes from ‘Meta Training and Inference Accelerator’ and its objective was research and design own chips training for artificial intelligence. Having your own chip makes all the sense in the world, since it is designed based on the needs you have. They have another advantage: you are not dependent on anyone else. If NVIDIA doesn’t have enough chips, it doesn’t matter because you have yours and can continue scaling data center systems (and those of Meta are immense) to continue the training and inference tasks. Meta was not going to be in charge of manufacturing, something that the highly reputable TSMCbut the program got off to a bad start. This is very difficult. Reuters He already mentioned it last year. After testing his first in-house developed training chip, Meta realized that things were not going well. It was underperforming what they expected, and it was also worse than the competition. They did not throw away the chips, but instead referred them to other systems (such as those for recommending Facebook and Instagram based on algorithms). The problem is that the performance of the training chip, the one really important for the AI ​​career, was not enough. Strategy change. In The Information They echo a statement from Meta stating that the company remains committed “to investing in different silicon options to meet our needs, which includes the advancement of our MTIA division” and they urge us to remain attentive to news that will be shared throughout this year. However, in the same medium it is noted that Meta has greatly lowered its expectations with its chips. The idea was to have two chips. On the one hand, Iris, a single instruction training chip that is easy to design, but from which it is difficult to extract all the juice in these training tasks. artificial intelligence training. On the other hand, Olympus, a chip that would be completed towards the end of this year and that would be the central part of Meta’s training clusters. According to The Information, there were many internal doubts about the stability of Olympus, its intricate design and profitability, so they have left it in the drawer to focus on more “simpler” chips. The evidence. In the end, if you can’t beat your “enemy”, join him. The sources consulted by The Information point out that, in addition to other complications, the training software was not as stable as what alternatives such as those from NVIDIA offer. And all of this has ended up causing two multimillion-dollar agreements. In a period of just a few days, Meta signed agreements with both AMD and NVIDIA so that both can supply them with chips to train the AI. It’s a win-win for everyone because Meta receives what he needs, NVIDIA has another client on a list it dominates and AMD continues to make a name for itself in the sector thanks to agreements like this one or the one they signed last year with OpenAI. In addition, Meta secures several sources so as not to depend only on one company. In fact, it is also estimated that they have signed an agreement to rent TPU units from Google. The competition. Meta’s objective, therefore, is to diversify its portfolio of AI chip suppliers as much as possible while continuing to investigate its own chips of which, supposedly, we will learn details later. They may continue investigating Olympus or a variant or decide on another approach. Because what is clear is that they must develop something ‘own’. NVIDIA and AMD are suppliers, not competitors as such. The real competition is OpenAI, X and Google, and the last two have their factories at full capacity. Google with its TPUsprocessors designed exclusively for AI, and xAI with its own chips that they abandoned and picked up more recently. Objective: dethrone NVIDIA. And all this occurs in a world in which everyone is ‘friends’, but enemies at the same time. I already say that NVIDIA is a hardware supplier, but they practically control the AI ​​​​computing market and are moving both in hardware and software. It is logical that other companies are investigating alternatives to boost their own AI. Added to the list is an Amazon that is also manufacturing some chips called Trainium3 UltraServer and OpenAI with its agreement with Broadcom to manufacture chips. It is, as I say, a curious scenario: everyone needs each other, and there is the “circular economy” of AI, but at the same time everyone wants to be independent. The problem is that NVIDIA has a huge advantage in this and has both the technology and the contracts with memory companies… and the contacts with which it ends up manufacturing the best chips: TSMC. In Xataka | Trump ordered the Pentagon to stop using Claude for being a “Woke AI.” Right after he bombed Iran using Claude

There was a time when Japan was the king of TVs. All its giants have ended up surrendering to the evidence

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Not so many years ago, talking about Japanese televisions was talking about the kings of the market. Not so much for volume but for quality. The Sony Trinitron were (and still are) to play retro video games) legendary, but there were the technologies of Sharp, Toshiba or the plasma from Panasonic. However, first South Korea and now China have run over Japanese brands. And Panasonic is the latest “victim.” And it may be for the best. The Panasonic case. Bluntly: Panasonic, which was once on the podium of the great Japanese manufacturers, has just announce that the Chinese company skyworth From now on, it will be in charge of producing and selling its televisions. At the catalog presentation event for this year, representatives of the Japanese brand they commented that the new partner “will lead sales, marketing and logistics while Panasonic provides expertise and quality assurance.” Speaking to FlatpanelsHD, Panasonic said Skyworth will take care of everything, but the resulting product will still be one that will have the “Panasonic” name. Turn towards China. The company had been outsourcing the production and functions of its models for years. mid-range and entrybut now that loss of identity is complete. With the move, the firm hopes to once again become one of the largest in both Europe and the United States, and the curious thing is that this announcement comes just a few weeks after Sony will outsource the production of its televisions to TCL. It is a symbolic turn because the Japan that previously led the technological conversation was gradually eclipsed by South Korea, Taiwan and, now, China. Both TCL and Skyworth are Chinese companies and, although TCL is much better known, Skyworth is not exactly small. Headquartered in Shenzhen, it has intermittently strained in the conversation of the main television manufacturers Android TV. It makes… sense. In statements to FlatpanelsHD, both companies will jointly develop the high-end OLED TVsand the movement has a very clear reading: it is a win-win for both companies, but as in the case of Sony-TCL, one wins -much- more than the other. Chinese companies have made a very strong investment in recent years in plants capable of producing an enormous quantity of large-inch panels. Televisions are manufactured from what is known as “mother glass”plates that, the larger the size, the more derived large-inch televisions will be produced. And if more televisions can be produced at a time, they can be sold at a lower price. TCL has state-of-the-art factories focused on that large-inch production, which helps explain why they sell 65- and 75-inch models at ridiculous prices. Therefore, with these associations, the Japanese hope that the muscle of the Chinese will help them achieve greater penetration. But, of course, it is undeniable that the names ‘Sony Bravia’ and ‘Panasonic’ are much more powerful than those of any Chinese brand, and now it is TCL and Skyworth that can exploit it in the market. Tears in the rain. In the end, as they say, of those muds, these muds. Panasonic, which was once one of the spearheads in terms of television technology thanks to plasma, had not made much of a splash for years in a conversation dominated by LG, Samsung and, by leaps and bounds, the Chinese. They were, along with Sony, the stronghold of a Japanese industry that had already seen how giants like Sharp, Pioneer or Toshiba they stayed in the gutter to be, in some cases, rescued by… Chinese companies (Toshiba by Hisense) or Taiwanese (Sharp by Foxconn). As they say, ‘mistakes were made’ and Panasonic held on for too many years to a plasma technology which was impressive, but also very expensive to produce and a huge ship that could not correct course when better LCD and OLED panels began to come out. As we say, we have to wait to see what this translates into in terms of market share, but in Japan it is a blow. Only with the joint venture of Sony and TCL, esteem that 50% of the Japanese market will be controlled by Chinese capital. The last pride they could hold on to was Panasonic. In Xataka |

There are people sharing their court cases with AI. The problem is when a judge considers the conversations as evidence

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More and more users have an AI chatbot as a companion for everything, whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Claudeor any other. The problem comes when we decide to share sensitive data with this type of tools, especially with commercial models produced by large technology companies where we will always have the doubt of where our data travels. In this sense, there are those who share their legal data with the assistant, which can lead to something like what recently happened in New York. And a city judge just set a precedent historical by considering that any conversation held with a chatbot is public and therefore not protected by attorney-client privilege. That is to say: everything you share with the AI ​​can end up being used against you in court. The case. Bradley Heppner, an executive accused of fraud worth $300 million, used Claude, Anthropic’s chatbot, to ask questions about his legal situation before being arrested. He created 31 documents with his conversations with the AI ​​and later shared them with his defense attorneys. When the FBI seized his electronic devices, his attorneys claimed those documents were protected by attorney-client privilege. Judge Jed Rakoff has said no. Because No. Just like share Moish Peltz, a lawyer specializing in digital assets and intellectual property, in a post on X, the sentence establishes three reasons. First, an AI is not a lawyer: it is not licensed to practice, owes no loyalty to anyone, and its terms of service expressly disclaim any attorney-client relationship. Second, sharing legal information with an AI is legally equivalent to telling it to a friend, so it is not protected by professional secrecy. And third, sending ‘non-privileged’ documents to your lawyer afterwards does not magically make them confidential. The underlying problem. As the lawyer recalls, the interface of this type of chatbot generates a false sense of privacy, but in reality you are entering information into a third-party commercial platform that retains your data and reserves broad rights to disclose it. According to Anthropic privacy policy In effect when Heppner used Claude, the company may disclose both user questions and generated responses to “governmental regulatory authorities.” Dilemma. The court document reveals Also an aggravating factor: Heppner introduced into the AI ​​information that he had previously received from his lawyers. This poses a dilemma for the prosecution, according to account Peltz. And if you try to use those documents as evidence at trial, defense attorneys could become witnesses to the events, potentially forcing a mistrial. What does it mean to you? If you are involved in any legal matter, according to this ruling, what you share with an AI can be claimed by a judge and used as evidence. It doesn’t matter whether you are preparing your defense or seeking preliminary advice, as each query can end up becoming a factor against you. And it does not only apply to criminal cases: divorces, labor disputes, commercial litigation… any conversation with AI on these topics escapes legal protection. And now what. Peltz points out that legal professionals must explicitly warn their clients of this risk. You can’t assume that people understand it intuitively. The solution he mentions involves creating collaborative workspaces with AI shared between lawyer and client, so any interaction with artificial intelligence will occur under the supervision of the lawyer and within the lawyer-client relationship. Cover image | Romain Dancre and Solen Feyissa In Xataka | Folding clothes or taking apart LEGOs has always been a tedious task. Xiaomi’s new AI for robots has put an end to it

Apple has been resisting turning Siri into a chatbot for years. Until the evidence has been surrendered

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2026 will be the year of Siri, but not because of an internal turn at Apple or because of the maturity of Apple Intelligence. It will be because the pact with Google will allow Apple to use Gemini technology as your assistant’s base. The details about what Apple will do with its assistant have not taken long to come to light and, we have good news: they will arrive in the next version of iOS. The new Siri. Apple has been announcing the benefits of the new Siri since before having prepared their news. With the Apple Intelligence announcement He put on the table a Siri completely integrated into the system, capable of functioning as a complete assistant and functioning mostly locally. The reality? Everything remains practically the same as before and, when Siri doesn’t know how to respond to something, ends up opening ChatGPT. What is going to change. They explain in Bloomberg that Apple, as of iOS 27will surrender to the chatbot model that has worked so well for companies like OpenAI and Google. The mere assistant model has expired, and Siri will become a chatbot at the service of any of our requests. This new chatbot will be integrated into all Apple apps (expecting an API open to developers to integrate it into their apps), allowing us, for example, to find specific photos in the app Photosfunction as a programming assistant in Xcodeetc. What won’t change. The only certainty with the new chatbot model is that Apple will continue to maintain its obsession with privacy and maintaining its AI ecosystem as its own, even if it is based on Gemini. Apple’s intention is to integrate this experience into iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watchmaintaining activation through Voice command “Siri” or holding down the power button on the iPhone. The difference. Today, Siri is an assistant, a command system. You tell him something Siri classifies the intention (set an alarm, call X person, send a message) Execute the order Moving to the chatbot model means having a generative model capable of interpreting natural language, maintaining conversations and a more “human” interaction with the phone. This is what their rivals have been doing for a few years. Adapting to the inevitable. That Siri will evolve in 2026 is proof that the classic assistant model is exhausted. Apple will have to adopt the chatbot model as an inevitable transition, previously led by OpenAI and in which Gemini now seems to be leading the way. The thing doesn’t end here. The destination of the new Siri is not only current Apple devices. As my colleague Javier Pastor says, the company plans to launch a device without a screenits first AI-focused wearable. According to the leaked information, it will have a format similar to that of AirTags, a microphone system and a launch scheduled for 2027. New assistant, new devices, and alliance with Google. The new stage of artificial intelligence for Apple is finally arriving. The question is whether they will manage to offer something new. Image | Xataka In Xataka | Hey Siri: 134 voice commands to get the most out of Apple’s assistant

We have found the oldest genetic evidence of incest in Europe. And it’s a case of father and daughter

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When we talk about endogamy in the historical worldthe truth is that it is easy to think about the royal dynasties or in island populations that were on the verge of extinction. But the truth is that this type of practice dates back 4,000 years, since it was only now that a team of researchers has found the first irrefutable biological proof of a sexual union. between a father and his own daughter in European prehistory. The study. Although it may seem crazy, the fact that a father and his own daughter were united beyond the family bond, the reality is very different. The research published in Communications Biology has reached this conclusion after analyzing some remains from a Bronze Age community in Calabria. The discovered. The finding focuses on the Grotta della Monacaan archaeological site in southern Italy used for both mining and burials during the Bronze Age (between 1780 and 1380 BC). There, archaeologists recovered remains of several individuals, but two of them powerfully called the attention of geneticists when analyzing your DNA. Specifically, an adult male with the code GMO022 and a pre-adolescent child with the code GMO007. The genetic material. It undoubtedly keeps a large number of secrets, and the fact that it is maintained over time to know all its details. By sequencing the genomes of these two subjects, the researchers They saw the kinship they had with great clarityand the subject with the number 22 was not only the father of the child. The analysis revealed that the child’s mother was also the daughter of subject 22. That is, child GMO007 was the result of a first-degree union between father and daughter. According to the researchers, led by paleogeneticists from the University of Bologna and the Max Planck Institute, this is the oldest evidence of this type of incest ever sequenced in Europe. Behind the discovery. How can researchers be so sure of this? The key is in a genetic measure called ROH or “homozygosity sections“To understand it, you have to know that when two parents are closely related, their offspring will inherit identical genetic blocks from both sides, and not different ones, as is normal in relationships with two genetically different people. The closer the relationship, the longer these blocks are. In the case of boy GMO007, researchers found unusually long stretches of identical DNA, occupying a massive portion of his genome. This through the computer modeling managed to rule out that it was a union between brothersand confirmed that the markers fit a father-daughter relationship. Habit? Without a doubt, it is the idea that can come to mind when seeing something that today can be a real aberration. In this way, looking for the reasons, it was seen that this community did not have a state of isolation that justified them having to procreate among their own relatives, since the population was about 5,000 individuals. In this way, there were many options available to not have to choose to have a father-daughter relationship. This leads the study authors to an important conclusion: this was not an accepted cultural practice. Unlike later Egyptian dynasties or the Incas, where royal incest was sacred, in this Bronze Age community the case of GMO007 appears to be a unique event. It wasn’t normal. In this way, it seems that this was a chance event or a violation of a taboo, which for some reason occurred in this family. The reasons are not known, but at that time it was not something accepted by social norms, despite talking about a community that was 3,700 years old. Its importance. Until now, evidence of first-degree incest (parent-child or full siblings) was almost non-existent in the European genetic registry outside of very specific cases. We had data on unions between siblings in Neanderthals or distant cases in the Irish Neolithic (Newgrange), but nothing so explicit between direct generations in this period. In this way, this study reminds us that the DNA of the oldest people even helps us see their most intimate details. Images | Sangharsh Lohakare In Xataka | They found a cube-shaped skull in Tamaulipas and thought it was a migrant. Science has turned history upside down

The OIEA finds evidence of the secret nuclear reactor of Syria

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In September 2007, Israeli combat aircraft reduced a complex in the Syrian desert of Deir Ezzor to debris. Israel said that there was a nuclear reactor there with the help of North Korea. The Bashar al Asad government replied that it was nothing more than a military base. For years, both versions met in the field of suspicion. Now, eighteen years later, the International Atomic Energy Agency (OIEA) provides evidence that incline the balance: in that place there was processed uranium. A few particles. According to a confidential report quoted by APNewsthe agency’s inspectors found “a significant amount of natural uranium particles” in one of the three sites examined in the last two years. As Reuters has pointed outit is not a rich uranium, but of anthropogenic origin: it had gone through a chemical process. “The analysis indicated that uranium occurred as a result of chemical processing,” the document said. According to Apnewssome of these particles coincide with the conversion of mineral concentrate into uranium oxide, a usual step in fuel production for reactors. A nuclear plan never recognized. The history of this “ghost reactor” begins in 2011. The OIEA had already estimated that the building destroyed by Israel was “most likely a nuclear reactor that should have been declared” by Syria. According to Apnewsthe installation would have been built with the support of North Korean engineers, which would explain the secrecy of the Bashar al Asad regime. Rafael Grossi, current director of the OIEA, acknowledged in statements collected by the news agency that some of the Syrian activities “were probably related to nuclear weapons.” However, Damascus always denied it. After the Israeli bombing, he leveled the land of Deir Ezzor to erase traces and refused to fully answer the questions of the international organism. The fall of Al-ásad. The turn came with the end of the Bashar al Asad regime, overthrown last year After almost three lustra of civil war. The new interim government, led by Ahmed al Sharaa, agreed to cooperate with the UN Nuclear Agency. Besides, As Reuters has had accessin June the authorities allowed for the second time the taking of environmental samples. It was not a linear process. According to The IndependentAsad’s departure temporarily interrupted the investigation: “We are still evaluating what we find there and we have a large questioning sign, because we do not have an interlocutor,” Grossi admitted in December 2024. With the restoration of contacts this year, the OIEA is optimistic: “Once the results are evaluated, it will be possible to resolve the pending issues related to the past nuclear activities of Syria.” A region marked by proliferation. Beyond the Syrian case, the findings are registered in a region marked by the shadow of nuclear proliferation. As we have pointed out in XatakaIsrael has bombarded on different occasions facilities in Iraq, Iran and Syria under the argument of preventing their enemies Develop atomic weapons. Grossi himself warned Bloomberg statements that the power vacuum in Syria opens the risk of looting nuclear materials in research centers. A civil nuclear future for Syria? Paradoxically, the new Syrian leadership has expressed interest in exploring a civil nuclear program. According to Al Jazeerathe interim president Al Sharaa discussed with the OIEA the possibility of resorting to small modular reactors to generate energy and asked for help to rebuild nuclear medical infrastructure, devastated by more than a decade of war. The OIEA has expressed willingness to collaborate in these areas, always under a transparent framework of safeguards. A file to close. The history of Deir Ezzor reactor seems to reach its final chapter. What began as a bombing wrapped in controversy and denials is now corroborated with scientific evidence. The OIEA insists that the new samples will allow the case to close, but the questions persist: How far did the Syrian clandestine nuclear program really arrive? What external actors fed him? And can a country devastated by war reorient its relationship with nuclear energy towards peaceful uses? Eighteen years after the Israeli attack, the ghost reactor is no longer a rumor: it is the proof of a secret that Damascus tried to bury in the desert sand. Image | IAEA IMEBANK and Unspash Xataka | Natural gas has become essential in the AI ​​era, and this chart exposes countries with the largest reserves

Sam Altman states that Chatgpt’s water and energy consumption is tiny. The problem is that it does not give evidence of it

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An email of 100 words generated by GPT-4 Consume 519 milliliters of water. That was the conclusion to which researchers at the University of California arrived a few months ago after analyzing this OpenAi model. Sam Altman, CEO of the company, has just yielded its own estimate on the consumption of water and energy of each consultation of Chatgpt. And it is very different. 1,000 times less than what was said. According to Altman, an average consultation in Chatgpt consumes much less than what had been indicated in previous studies. Your data are strikingand to understand them makes interesting analogies: “As production automated in data centers automates, the cost of intelligence should approach electricity. (People are usually curious to know how much energy consumes a chatgpt consultation; the average consult (0.32 ml); A previous study of Epoch ai corroborates the data that Sam Altman has now wielded. Source: Epoch AI. And the tests? Those figures mentioned by the OpenAi CEO have a problem: they have no visible support. He throws them without citing sources or explaining where he has taken them out, something that makes it difficult to believe. A Meta executive answered the question of How much consumes the inference AI A year and a half ago, responding that “only two nuclear reactors would be needed to cover it.” But previous studies coincide with Altman. Although he does not mention any evidence, in February, Epoch AI researchers precisely They published a study trying to estimate the energy consumption of chatgpt. In their conclusions they indicated that on average a chatgpt consult Previous report of the researcher Alex de Vries. Since then, of course, many things have happened. Too pessimistic. And as they commented on the study of Epoch AI, the difference comes from the fact that the models are today much more efficient than in 2023, when VRies conducted their study. So is the hardware in which these models are executed, and that estimate was also used a “especially pessimistic” approach. In Openai’s study they also threw an especially pessimistic estimate and pointed out that “most of the requests (A chatgpt) are much cheaper (energetically).” More studies. Another independent study published by Andy Masey in January 2025 reached a similar conclusion and claimed that “using Chatgpt is not bad for the environment.” It was based on EPRI data May 2024 that also estimated a high consumption of 2.9 Wh by chatgpt consultation. Estimated water consumption In data centersfrom A SUNBIRD studyit was also very modest compared to other online activities. Water consumption in data centers for various online activities. Source: Andy Masley. Fifte. Precisely the data of water consumption was another striking in that estimate of Sam Altman. According to him, a chatgpt consultation barely consumed 0.32 ml of water, “a quinceava part of a teaspoon.” The figure suggests that the water needed to refrigerate data centers that process these requests is much less than what was thought only one year ago. And training, what? These estimates focus on the AI ​​inference section, that is, our use of chatgpt that receives a consultation and processes it inferring (generating) a text result. Although Altman does not clarify it, he does not seem to include here the energy and water cost of training AI models, which is very high and makes thousands of Gpus They work at full power For months, with the consequent water expense in data centers to refrigerate all those components that dissipate high heat amounts. As I pointed out The researcher Ethan Mollick, GPT-4 probably used more than 50 GW to be trained, enough to give energy to 5,500 homes in a year. We continue without definitive data. Altman’s claims are as always striking, but the lack of clear evidence makes it difficult to believe these data. Other recent studies are more useful when it comes to reflecting this increasingly lower cost both in energy and water from the use of AI, but there are no accepted standards or a consensus on the true impact of energy and water consumption when using chatgpt or other AI models. Image | Lukáš Lehotský | Village Global In Xataka | The light price is again negative: it is a sign that the system needs a redesign

There are people recommending to sew the leg on albal paper. There is zero evidence to work

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From vinegar with bicarbonate to garlic under the pillow, home remedies have been for generations a popular resource for calming pain and treating discomfort. Today, those beliefs travel faster than ever: they have passed from the whisper between neighbors to the Tiktok algorithm. Between viral recipes and striking promises, there is one that stands out for how strange it is: wrapping body parts with aluminum foil to relieve pain. The phenomenon. On platforms such as Tiktok and Instagramthe tips that recommend using aluminum foil on the body to relieve pain or improve circulation have become viral. Often these publications are presented as secrets that conventional medicine He doesn’t want to reveal. Some people claim that the effect is more powerful if combined With ointments like Vicks Vaporubwhile others simply describe it as a “natural remedy”. The trend has caught so much attention that various digital media echoed, either to explain How has it popularized either Explain how to do it without major contrast. It is another example of how contents without scientific basis propagate easily thanks to short videos, personal testimonies and a language that sounds convincing. Hence half the world, stunning the leg on aluminum foil there is only one scroll away. The science behind this. There is no scientific evidence that supports the use of aluminum foil to relieve pain. Only in an investigation Published in Journal of Inflammation Research The use of different materials between this aluminum is mentioned, but the conclusion is that it has no therapeutic effects proven in humans. It is mentioned that the relief that some people They claim to experiment It is probably due to the placebo effect. For his part, Dr. Ubaid Ur Rahman, in statements to Thip Media, It is clear about it: “I want to clarify the confusion about a recent statement that wrapping body parts with aluminum foil can relieve pain. This is not backed by scientific evidence.” And add an important warning: “Using aluminum foil can be harmful, since it can cause tissue damage and allergic reactions. It is essential not to delay proper treatment or replace it with unseed methods.” A relief that is not. The placebo effect can explain part of these experiences. From Harvard Health They explain that it is not about “positive thinking”, but a response from the body that can relieve symptoms when we believe we are receiving a treatment. But that does not turn aluminum foil, nor justify its use as a substitute for medicine. Belief can generate a temporary improvement, but the risk is in what is stopped in the meantime. He no longer catches us by surprise. In social networks, other trends are not to be amplified that, under the pretext of “natural”, are implying real risks. Such as Apple vinegar consumption As a “morning suck”, promoted as “fat burning” or “purifying”, which ends up damaging tooth enamel and causing gastrointestinal irritations. Another example is the fashion of Eat placenta After childbirth, which has gained popularity in some circles even though there is no evidence of benefits and sanitary warnings. The amplification. In social networks, remedies are amplified quickly, many times without filter or context. Some may have a valid background; Others, such as the use of aluminum foil against pain, lack scientific support and can distract effective treatments. The key is to discern: question, contrast and, above all, not replace evidence with virality. Informing well is also a way to take care of yourself. Image | Tik tok Xataka | The industry that wants to sell “youth” powder: how collagen has become a global obsession

Loneliness is already a matter of public health. We have more and more evidence that animals help us to placate it

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In recent years, we have seen how loneliness has become a problem with numerous ramifications, including toilets. The “male solitude epidemic” is one of the faces that has given more to talk, but loneliness also affects other sectors of the population. And small details can help, if not to solve it, perhaps at least to relieve it. Pets. Domestic animals They can help To placate the feelings of loneliness, as a new study has observed. Interestingly, the study key is not in the company that they could offer, in themselves, these animals, but in their ability to boost and facilitate social interactions between people. The work was done in Australia and focused on two groups notoriously susceptible to this problem: older people and international students. The team found that animals could be useful to facilitate the interactions between these two groups, improving the well -being and health of both. “We find that older adults and international students experienced a significant decrease in feelings of loneliness and a significant increase in their health. The presence of living pets in particular helped break the ice and facilitated conversations between participants,” stood out in a press release Em Bould, co -author of the study. The cost of a silent epidemic. The loneliness It can impact us In different ways, not only in our well -being, but also in our physical and mental health. Loneliness can accelerate our cognitive deterioration and has also been linked to lower life expectancy. Pilot project. The study was based on a pilot project in which 30 elderly people participated in different residences of the Australian state of Victoria, as well as 11 international students. For 18 weeks, participants held periodic meetings, of one hour every week, in which various leisure activities linked to animals were carried out. There were also animals, and robotic versions of these. Some of the participants in the pilot project (six older people and 10 students) also participated in the evaluation of the program and subsequent study. These participants completed several surveys and also participated in a semi -structured survey. Measuring loneliness. Measuring loneliness is not simple, but there are some tools dedicated to this, such as the scale of the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), the one used in this analysis. The team also evaluated the health status of the participants, through an instrument of 5 dimensions-Europe. The evaluation was positive in both dimensions. The team responsible for this observed both a decrease in the sunny index and an ascent in the health index. The details of the study were published in an article in the magazine Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice. Fight loneliness. The fact that in an era that stands out for advances in communication technologies La Soledad has acquired such dimensions is a sad irony. However, the important weight that loneliness can mean about our State forces us to take the problem very seriously. In Xataka | A good way to end loneliness in cities: plant more trees Image | / Alec Favale

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