exact

a macro study reveals the exact heart rate to minimize the risk of stroke

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Nowadays we monitor our vital signs, such as heart rateon the wrist itself thanks to smartwatches and activity bracelets that constantly tell us how many beats per minute our heart beats at rest. This information is vital, since traditionally it is believed that having an excessively high number is an indication that something bad is happening in the heart. The middle point is the best. In medicine, both due to excess and scarcity, we can find a scenario that is pathological, and that is why, although we relate high heart rate as something very negative, we must keep in mind that having them excessively low It is not always positive. This is the main conclusion of a pioneering research presented at the European Stroke Organization Conference, and although it has yet to undergo review, its foundations are extraordinarily solid, based on the analysis of 460,000 participants over 14 years. Crossing data. Of all these people analyzed, the researchers were especially interested in their medical histories and the diseases they presented, highlighting the registration of a total of 12,290 cases of stroke during the decade and a half of follow-up. But what is truly important here is when these records were crossed with the resting heart rate data of the participants, discovering a very clear pattern by showing a risk graph in the shape of a ‘U’ and not a straight line. Its meaning. The fact that a graph with this shape has been generated tells us that the optimal heart rate level is between 60 and 69 beats per minute, since these people were the ones with the lowest risk of suffering from a stroke. The problem is that, when the heart rate at rest exceeds 90 bpm, the risk of suffering a stroke increases by up to 45%, both ischemic and hemorrhagic. But in the case of having excessively low heart rate, the risk also increases, so we cannot be completely calm if we have 50 bpm at rest. Atrial fibrillation. Until now, medicine was very clear that severe arrhythmias such as atrial fibrillation They were determining risk factors for suffering a stroke. But now this study adjusted the data specifically to separate people with and without atrial fibrillation, showing that resting heart rate is, on its own, an independent prognostic marker. Because? Although this study gives us a lot of information, the reality is that previous medical literature already offered a fairly rigorous explanation as to why a low or high heart rate had implications for strokes. In this case, an excessively low frequency can alter cerebral hemodynamics, causing blood to pass too slowly through the brain, and facilitating the formation of thrombi in certain contexts, especially when there are more risk factors. On the other side of the scale, when the frequency is chronically high, we have the layer of our blood vessels exposed to blood flow, exposed to constant mechanical stress that favors inflammation, hypertension and vascular damage, as has been shown in previous studies. Preventive medicine. These findings are good news for patients, especially older patients, since it is a new parameter that can predict the possibility of something as serious as a stroke occurring. This allows, especially in primary care, to better control the heart rate and not miss when it goes too fast or too slow, since the consequences can be fatal. Images | freepik In Xataka | We cannot predict a stroke, but we can avoid its main risk factors: reducing the danger is in our power

We already knew that we ate plastic. Now science has discovered the exact chaos it causes in our intestines

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We have long realized that we are surrounded by microplastics, both in the water which we take as in food or even the air that we breathe, causing them to appear even in the human placenta. However, there are still many questions about the consequences of having these microplastics in the body, although science continues to take steps to give us an answer about them. how it can alter our general healthand the last thing we know is related to the effect on our digestive system. Ground zero. Something that is already known by almost everyone is that the intestine is full of billions of microorganisms which are essential for our immunity and also for metabolism, making its alteration related even to issues in the central nervous system. But now, science suggests that microplastics can drastically alter the composition and diversity of this ecosystem by destroying some of the bacteria that we harbor inside us to create a completely different environment that can affect our digestion, but also other parts of the body. How it has been seen. To understand how this happens in real time, CSIC researchers developed a sophisticated patented digestion simulation system known as SIMGI. This is mainly based on introducing artificial particles formed by the typical plastic of water bottles into the stomach and colon and observing how it affected bacterial diversity. From here, different investigations have seen that families of beneficial bacteriaas Lachnospiraceae, Oscillospiraceae and Ruminococcaceaeplummet, while the growth of groups that can generate disease is favored. And we must understand that ‘good’ bacteria occupy a space in our intestine so that nothing else can ‘germinate’ there. But logically, if they disappear, they leave their ‘hole’ for other bacteria to pass through. It goes further. But beyond a bacterial imbalance, there is different research that already points to how microplastics destroy the physical barrier we have in our intestine. In this way, scientists have detected that these tiny fragments cause the generation of oxidative stress and, therefore, the overproduction of reactive oxygen species, which only generates great damage to the tissues. But this chemical attack also adds to mechanical damage, which some experts categorize as ‘sandpaper’, since together they manage to reduce the expression of proteins that are key to maintaining the union structure that characterizes the cells that exist in our intestinal wall. The result. If we destroy the scaffolding that maintains the ‘walls’ of our digestive system, the only thing that will be achieved is that increase intestinal permeabilityso any toxin or bacterial molecule will be able to pass from the intestine to the bloodstream, since there is no ‘wall’ that blocks the access of agents that are not wanted in our body. Logically, the passage of toxins without the control of this intestinal barrier activates our immune system defenses, which results in inflammation maintained over time that favors the destruction of tissues and also progresses in important chronic diseases. There is more. As if that were not enough, it is known that microplastics are excellent transport vehicles, since when they come into contact with our biological fluids they become covered with a “protein crown”. This is something really important, since this layer literally camouflages the microplastic and makes it easier for it to adhere to our living cells. But added to all this, we also see that they can act as the perfect support for bacteria and form what is known as biofilms. In this way, microplastic can be seen as a vehicle for external and potentially dangerous microbial communities directly to our tissues. Where are they going? If microplastics alter our barriers, logically the plastic has a free way and that is why it is capable of traveling to different organs such as, for example, the liver, kidneys or brain. And once here, research already indicates that its accumulation is related to DNA damage, deregulation of the immune system or alterations in our entire hormonal system that can lead to chronic diseases. Images | rimufilms on Freepik In Xataka | Researchers analyzed 280 samples of bottled water. Only one of the brands was free of microplastics

Jesus was not born in the year 1 or on December 25. Here’s what we know about his actual and exact date of birth

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With Jesus of Nazareth something curious happens. Few characters have been more celebrated, discussed and reviewed throughout the centuries. Today historians they usually coincide in which (although there is no material evidence of its existence) was a historical figure that can be framed in the Galilee of 2,000 years ago. However, despite all the attention he has received over the last 20 centuries, there are certain key details of his biography that remain shrouded in shadows. For example the date of your birth. And by “date” we don’t just mean the day, but also the year. When discussing, we could even question where was he born. The usual thing is to think that Jesus came into the world on December 25 in Bethlehem of Judea and that six days later humanity (at least the West or the West of Christian influence) entered into a new eraone in which history was dislocated into two stages that we still use today in the 21st century, whether we are Christians or not: the one before and the one after the birth of Christ (Anno Domini). Totally normal, right? That is, why else would we celebrate Christmas every December 25th, a word that comes from the Latin “https://www.xataka.com/magnet/nativitas” (“birth”)? And why do we talk about years BC and AD if it is not for the birth of Christ? Reality is more complicated and has some chiaroscuros. What do we know about the birth of Jesus? The answer to the previous question is very simple: little. Historians usually agree that there are basically two sources to address the topic of the birth of Jesus and both are reflected in the same work: the New Testament of the Bible. The evangelist gives us a clue Matthew. The other, Luke. The problem is not only the scarcity of information, but that both texts were written many decades after the events they narrate. To be more precise, around 80 and 90 AD, half a century after the crucifixion. Of course in the New Testament there are older texts (such as the letters of Paul or even the gospel of Mark, written around 70 AD), but they are of little use if what interests us is the childhood (and especially the birth) of Jesus. Taking into account the few references there are and the importance of the topic (we are talking about the birth of the central character of one of the most influential religions in history), it would be logical that Matthew and Luke coincide in their stories. It’s not like that. In their texts both offer us what experts call “chronological anchors”references that help us date the birth of Jesus, but those clues are scarce and do not quite fit together. What exactly do they tell us? Let’s see. “And when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, behold, wise men came from the east to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is the King of the Jews who has been born? For we have seen his star in the east, and we have come to worship him. When Herod heard this, he was troubled, and Jerusalem with him.’ Matthew 2:2-4 “And it came to pass in those days that an edict went out from Augustus Caesar, that all the land should be enumerated. This first enumeration was made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. And they all went to be enumerated, each one to his city. Then Joseph went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, to be registered with Mary, his wife, who was betrothed to him, who was with child. And it came to pass that while they were there, the days were fulfilled in which she was to give birth.” Luke 2:2-7 Although it may not seem like it a priori, both passages hide a small discrepancy, as explains in Wake up Ferro Professor Javier Alonso, philologist, historian and biblical scholar. The evangelist Matthew (and Luke) tells us that Jesus was born in the time of King Herod, but then Luke specifies that Mary was counted while she and Joseph were traveling to fulfill the census ordered in the time of Augustus. If we review history we see that both “anchors” they collide with each other. Herod the Greatruler under the orders of Rome, ruled Judea more or less between 40 and 4 BCyear of his death. As for the census that Luke tells us about, historians believe that it coincided with the census carried out by Quirinus in the time of Augustus, a fact mentioned by Flavius ​​Josephus. The problem, remember Alonsois that Quirinus ruled around 6 AD the region that covers Judea, years after the death of Herod. Conclusion? Both evangelists are actually drawing a fairly broad time frame, of a decade, that could be set between the years prior to the king’s death and 6 AD “There is a difference of at least 10 years between Matthew and Luke,” explains Alonso. Why do we say that Jesus was born when he was born? At this point that is the most reasonable question. If the evangelists point to a time horizon that begins several years before our era (Anno Domini), because devils Do we say that Jesus was born a few days before the 1st AD? Who and how set that date? To answer these questions we must go back a few centuries, although without reaching the era of Herod. Our attention will focus on beginning of the 5th ADwhen at the request of the Pope the Scythian monk Dionysus ‘the Exiguous’ He launched into a difficult task: calculating the date of Christ’s birth. It may sound strange that so many centuries later the followers of Jesus would worry about this question, but at stake there was a primary issue: clarifying when Easter should be celebrated (Computus paschalis), the main celebration of Christianity. Its date … Read more

We already know how to retrieve the exact prompts that people use in AI models. It’s terrifying news

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A group of researchers has published a study that once again raises alarm bells regarding privacy when using AI. What they have managed to demonstrate is that it is possible to know the exact prompt that a user used when asking a chatbot something, and that puts AI companies in a delicate position. They can, more than ever, know everything about us. A terrifying study. If you are told that ‘Linguistic models are injective and, therefore, invertible’ you will probably be shocked. That’s the title from the study carried out by European researchers in which they explain that large language models (LLM) have a major privacy problem. And it has it because the transformer architecture is designed that way: each different prompt corresponds to a different “embedding” in the latent space of the model. A sneaky algorithm. During the development of their theory, the researchers created an algorithm called SIPIT (Sequential Inverse Prompt via ITerative updates). Such an algorithm reconstructs the exact input text from the hidden activations/states with a guarantee that it will do so in linear time. Or what is the same: you can make the model “snap” easily and quickly. What does this mean. What all this means is that the answer you got when using that AI model allows you to find out exactly what you asked it. In reality, it is not the answer that gives away, but the hidden states or embeddings that the AI ​​models use to end up giving the final answer. That’s a problem, because AI companies keep these states hidden, which would theoretically allow them to know the input prompt with absolute accuracy. But many companies already saved the prompts. That’s true, but that “injectivity” creates an additional privacy risk. Many embeddings or internal states are stored for caching, for monitoring or diagnosis, and for customization. If a company only deletes the plain text conversation but does not delete the embeddings file, the prompt is still recoverable from that file. The study shows that any system that stores hidden states is effectively handling the input text itself. Legal impact. There is also a dangerous legal component here. Until now, regulators and companies argued that internal states were not considered “recoverable personal data,” but that invertibility changes the rules of the game. If an AI company tells you that “don’t worry, I don’t save the prompts” but it does save the hidden states, it’s as if that theoretical privacy guarantee is of no use. Possible data leaks. A priori it does not seem easy for a potential attacker to do something like this because they would first have to have access to those embeddings. A security breach that results in the leak of a database of those internal/hidden states (embeddings) would no longer be considered an exposure of “abstract” or “encrypted” data, but rather a plain text source from which, for example, financial data or passwords that a company or user has used when asking the AI ​​model could be obtained. Right to be forgotten. This injectivity of LLM also complicates the requirements of regulatory compliance for the protection of personal data, such as the GDPR or the “right to be forgotten.” If a user requests complete deletion of their data from a company like OpenAI, they must ensure that they delete not only visible chat logs, but also all internal representations (embeddings). If any hidden state persists in any register or cache, the original prompt would still be potentially recoverable. Image | Levart Photographer In Xataka | OpenAI is making the tech industry unite its destiny with yours. For the sake of the global economy, it better work

There are people who never know when to leave a series. Someone has investigated the exact moment to do so

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It has all the meaning of the world that we discuss and reflect tirelessly on what point the series spoils, how the series are not eternal and what methods we can find to anticipate the tragic moment in which our favorite series ceases to be what it was. After all, we invest a lot of time in them: They are hours and hours of our free time, and when they stop liking ourselves, we continue looking for their company in the hope that they will do it again. Sometimes it happens, sometimes not. Daniel Parris’s Newsletter Significant Star It is dedicated to answering these types of questions using thousands of data collected in databases of the most varied. ¿When we stop finding new music? ¿What classic films endure the passage of time? ¿They die more famous now than before? And above all, the essential:People hate as much as it looks like Coldplay? (In this case I can speak for me, and no statistics are needed). In this line of transcendental questions that can be answered with statistics (A fan of statistics assures us, but that’s another issue), it’s’How many episodes of a series have to endure before stopping seeing it?‘Before continuing, it would be necessary to clarify that these data start from the logical fallacy of thinking that a note in IMDB is the mother of the lamb, and a series (or episode) that suspends in IMDB is effectively bad, when there are thousands of variants (Review Bombicscult series to which the well-mal dichotomy does not feel good or, punch, that many times people are wrong) that question this reasoning. But let’s start from there. The average grade as a canon Parris calculations take, for example, to calculate the average grade of all the episodes of a series. Puts the example of ‘Friends‘, which has an average (quite high) note of 8.34. We can say that this is the intermediate quality point: an episode with more note that will have a greater quality than the majority, with less that quality will be lower. There are series whose first episodes are already around this average note (‘Game of Thrones‘, for example), in other cases the series take to find that average note. The aforementioned ‘Friends’, for example, It does not reach that 8.34 to the seventh episode. Well: Parris calculation consists in taking all IMDB series and Compare the note of each episode with this average grade, and the result is a differential. Most of the series, it seems to be, take six or seven episodes to achieve that average quality. It is clearly appreciated in this graphic Image: Stant significant Is it a lot? Is little? Well, it is a considerable amount of hours, but Parris overlooks a very complicated topic to quantify: the last episodes of a series are better/more interesting/more exciting than the former because … This is how stories work! The first episodes always serve to prepare the way and then have interest. The data we can get from this is: do not trust a statesman to make cultural criticism. But let’s continue. After all, as Parris says, the verySeinfeld‘It took 16 episodes in find your Mojo. How much before I take me? But you can go further, and expand the photo: what if we go to the seasons? Practically All series have a time when interest begins to declinewhere they have been elongated beyond the reasonable, where everything that could be counted has been counted and we entered into argumentary arches that are repeated, characters that no longer have grace, loss of originality, skacuartos spirit and other phenomena that can come to load the memory of a series in its entirety because, again Paradigmatic case of ‘Game of Thrones’ It appears, many times from the end is what people remember the most. Let’s look at this new picture: Image: Stant significant Again using that average note as the base of the quality of a series, we have to in most series there is a change between the fifth and sixth season. From there there is no back. Of course, There are variables: In ‘Game of Thrones’ the greatest fall in the valuations with respect to the first is the eighth season, in ‘House of Cards’ the sixth and in ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ the fourth. They are not necessarily the last seasons, but the most disappointing season. There is no clear rule, but a more or less immutable truth: there is no series that can be prolonged indefinitely. Can conclusions based on mathematics from here be drawn? Well yes and no: It seems more or less reasonable to think that no series can survive foreverbut there are some that after a great quality descent recover something from its initial attraction. The advice that can be removed from this data is: there is no unique solution and applicable to all series, but in general, when you start seeing a decline in quality, leave it. In very, very rare occasions things will be like in that wonderful episode eight of the first season. Header | Warner In Xataka | The 17 best streaming series of 2024 and where to see them

I have detected the exact moment in which things in Marvel began to fail and that has culminated in ‘Captain America’

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Until the weekend, when the public’s opinion begins to fly over the Internet (which in the end is the one who pays and the one that interests Disney, since the consensus of criticism and public they generated ‘Infinity War‘ and ‘Endey me‘It is unlikely to be repeated again), we will not know if’Captain America: Brave New World‘It is a failure or a triumph. What we can analyze is at what point in the history of MCU Things began to twist. The majority opinion. We can all be more or less agree that there is an MCU stage with a more or less positive balance (which goes from acceptable to the glorious, according to the fan’s enthusiasm) that begins in ‘Iron Man’ and extends until ‘ Endgame ‘. And from there, things began to twist, with stages 4 and 5 mainly disastrous that led to the first Marvel box office failures, to a possible “Superheroic fatigue“And at the time of current uncertainty. But there are nuances. Matiz one: Not the whole field is oregano. 23 films, which is said soon, make up the MCU from ‘Iron Man’ to ‘Endgame’ (well, to ‘Spider-Man: Far from home‘). It is statistically impossible for all to be round, and we cannot even agree on our appreciations. For example, for the signer ‘Iron Man 3’ it is one of the peaks of the MCU, many would say the opposite, and I think it was a mistake that Marvel did not continue to cultivate that way. And there are a multitude of bland films, which are celebrated just because they are in the context of very grossing productions and well considered: ‘Iron Man 2’, ‘Thor: The dark world’ or ‘Avengers: the era of ultron’ are some of them . Matiz two: Not everything is horrible from phase 4. And on the contrary, there are innumerable films (and series) to celebrate from ‘Endgame’: ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of madness‘It is hilarious, and the generally hated’Quantumanía‘ either ‘The Marvels‘They are failed films but with a very claimable personality. And of course, there are multiple remarkable moments in ‘Wandavision‘,’Knight Luna‘ either ‘Agatha, who if not?‘ The authentic problem. The drama of phases 4 and 5 is that they do not have that very pleasant style of the first three stages of going in one direction and with a purpose. Perhaps it became like this, perhaps not, but the feeling that ‘Endgame’ is designed from the first appearance of the Avengers is there, and that does not exist in phases 4 and 5. Of course, there are threads that connect everything, like The theme of the multiversos, but there are many films (‘Shang-Chi‘,’Thor: Love and Thunder‘,’Wakanda Forever‘), which seem to air shots, as looking for new charismatic heroes that replace the Avengers. And as in ‘Brave New World’, the feeling that is a useless effort floats. The movie hinge. And Marvel’s first failure, ‘Eternals‘It is the key point. Marvel had loose films previously, and possibly any did not give up at the box office as they expected, but ‘Eternals’ is the first one that forced them to go back. They wanted the group to become a new avengers, but a team capable of supporting the weight of several films: they raised sub -brains that would last in other films, and new characters seen fleetingly, such as Starfox, of which we did not return namely. Marvel reculled in his plan, and the worst thing is that he saw that he could reculate and the public accepted it, which multiplied the test movies, the ideas that were isolated in a film and the failed experiments. A world that played the mirage of being compact and coherent became one where neglect and carelessness predominates. Header | Disney In Xataka | The first trailer of ‘The fantastic 4: first steps’ reveals the key ingredient for Marvel’s future: its villain

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