knew

2,300 years ago Plato already knew what to do with social networks

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“This invention will produce forgetfulness in those who learn it, because they will not exercise their memory: they will trust in the external, not in themselves.” These words are not from a neuroscientist talking about artificial intelligence, nor from a politician regulating social networks. They are from Thamus, king of Egypt, who 2,300 years ago, in Plato’s ‘Phaedrus’, argued that any technology that helps remember ends up weakening. He was talking, of course, about writing. But, curiously, the arguments are so current and relevant that they could have been stated today: banning social mediaFor example. And this is the interesting thing. What was Plato’s argument? The quote, as I say, is from the end of the Phaedrus. There appears the call ‘myth of Theuth and Thamus‘: the god Theuth presents writing as a fantastic technology that would improve memory and Thamus, in contrast, responds that what will improve is forgetting. Although it is usually brought up in the context of classical disputes about whether writing is good or bad, the truth is that the good Plato’s argument is a little more subtle: what he is interested in confronting is rather the difference between internalized and practical knowledge, on the one hand; and the knowledge that, even though it is easily available (thanks to writing), has not left a mark on the subject. That is, Plato does not contest writing. He was, rather, describing a pattern: each cognitive technology reconfigures the skills we practice and those we don’t (and therefore let atrophy). ‘Cognitive offloading’. That is the ‘word’ that, from certain areas of cognitive science, is used to download mental work. They can be using notes, to-do lists, calendars, GPSs or search engines… it doesn’t matter, the phenomenon is very similar to what Plato commented on. The available evidence tells us that, in effect, there is a trade-off: Using these systems improves immediate performance (as Theuth argued), but can reduce deep learning (as de Thamus argued). And it makes sense. When we know that something will be accessible, the tendency is memorize its content less and dedicate those resources to memorizing where to find it. In other words, it changes what we do with those resources we have to try to make their use as efficient as possible. In fact, in the same way we have to recognize that this has problems (especially with content that is fundamentally important), but it also has benefits. This ‘resource release’ allows us, for example, learn new things. PlatoGPT. The issue is always very similar: new technologies trigger moral panic in society and then, with hindsight, we see if they were right or wrong. That is to say, we have been in a very long war between early-adopters and late-adopters for 2,300 years. Now it’s up to artificial intelligence and Plato’s reflections are good. Above all, because they help us see AI as something that goes beyond “a tool”: it is a complete system of incentives that pushes us to improve certain skills and atrophy others. The key is whether those skills that we atrophy are necessary for something else. “Put doors on the field.” A few years ago, the philosopher Antonio Diéguez visited us and explained that the idea that technologists repeat so much that “you can’t put doors on the field” was somewhat problematic. Of course you can. It has a cost, it is true; But there is also a risk of being uncritical with all the technologies that knock on our door. We have learned it the hard way in recent years. We live in strange times when nobody knows anything about the social impact of new technologies. But what is clear is that this should not confuse us and make us believe that we cannot know anything about it. Yes we can, yes we can. It’s more. As Plato said, it is our obligation to know. Image | Raphael / Robin Worral In Xataka | Why being a teenager has always been shit and in the age of social media even more

We knew that Mars has gravity. Now we have just discovered the unexpected effect it has on the Earth’s climate

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I don’t need to tell you that the Earth’s climate is not constant and it is not just because of the climate change: If we look at it in perspective, throughout the history of the planet it has gone through glaciations and warm periods. Many of these changes find explanation in the Milankovitch cycles or orbital variations, that is, the slow changes in the Earth’s orbit and the inclination of its axis due to the gravitational attraction of other planets. The surprising influence of Mars. It was known that the giant Jupiter or the nearby Venus are largely to blame, but now we have discovered another secondary actor that has gained importance: Mars, as explained this study collected in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and led by scientist Stephen Kane. What’s surprising about it? That Mars only has 10% of the mass of the Earth, hence there are simplified climate models that downplay its importance. The simulations. The hypothesis is: what would happen to the Earth’s orbit if Mars were much larger or did not exist? Since human research teams do not have millions of years to wait, they used simulations with a solar system model of ten million years each to study gravitational interactions. The only factor they changed in each simulation was the mass of Mars: from zero (Mars does not exist) to being ten times larger than Earth. Mars “weighs” much more than we think. And the results were conclusive: Mars is directly responsible for the “Great Cycle”, a 2.4 million year gravitational beat in which Mars rhythmically stretches and shrinks the Earth’s orbit, acting as a metronome that regulates the amount of solar radiation received and regulates the frequency of ice ages. Without Mars, that cycle would not exist. However, Kane nuance: “It doesn’t mean that without Mars the Earth wouldn’t have ice ages, but it would completely change the frequency with which they occur.” But if Mars were giant, Earth’s climate cycles would also change: they would be shorter and more extreme, going from an ice age to suffocating heat waves. In short, life adaptation would become more complicated. What would not change, according to the study, is the “great Jupiter – Venus cycle”, the 405,000-year gravitational pattern driven by a secular resonance of both planets that acts as the “master clock” of the Earth’s climate as it is the most stable and constant cycle in the planet’s geological history. Why is it important. Knowing better the influence of the planets around us on the climate is good news that helps us better understand our past and be able to glimpse the future with more precision. But it has an impact on the search for habitable exoplanets: it is not enough to find something similar to Earth, but you also have to look at its neighbors and pay attention to the fine print. That is, if it has a “Mars-type” planet nearby but of great mass, its climate has every chance of being too chaotic for life. In Xataka | Mars has just entered the exclusive club of planets with rays. This is discouraging news for NASA. In Xataka | We had been wondering for decades how Mars could have water, cold and life. Today we finally have an answer Cover | Photo of Planet Volumes in Unsplash

AI has already destroyed the world of programmers as we knew it. Now it’s the turn of the translators

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On November 8, 1519, an extraordinary meeting took place: Hernán Cortés met with Emperor Moctezuma II. Of course, neither one nor the other understood anything of what their interlocutor was saying: Hernán Cortés spoke Spanish and Moctezuma spoke Nahuatl, but that problem was solved thanks to two chain translators: Malinche translated from Nahuatl to Mayan, and Jerónimo de Aguilar went from Mayan to Spanish, and vice versa. History is full of legendary translations like that one, and in all of them, human beings depended on human translators to understand the other party. That has been changing with various technologies, but the one that is really about to change everything is AI. With AI we have found (and translated) In fact, translation technology has run parallel to technological evolution itself. From the translation based on rules of the second half of the 20th century we moved in the 90s to the automatic statistical translations which, for example, ended up using Google Translate. These systems looked for the “most likely” translation, not the “most correct” one. These statistical models improved with the phrase-based translationbut The final leap was made by DeepLwhich appeared in 2017 to change everything with the use of neural networks and neural machine translation. Google had also started to adopt that system in 2016, and it was clear what the path was. With the arrival of generative AI we have found ourselves with another potential leap in this field. There are, however, differences: these systems are based on large language models (LLM) that are then trained and tuned specifically for translationwhich a priori gives them an advantage when it comes to achieving more natural and versatile translations. The application of AI models to the field of translation seems to be following in the footsteps of what we have seen with programming. Developers have embraced this revolution and many of us have realized it thanks to the vibe coding that it is possible to program without knowing how to program. The same clearly occurs with these systems that enable us to know how to speak languages ​​that we don’t actually know how to speak. Machines do it for us, and they do it better and more immediately. The real-time translation is very fashionable and both Google and Meta—which has been warning for a long time— they are integrating it into their current or future glasses augmented reality. Apple, which does not usually launch things that are not mature, has just integrated it on your AirPods. The user experience may not perfect at the momentbut it is clear that this type of function is going to become more and more common, a commodity technological more. The transition And this transition that wants to turn access to quality translations into something “trivial” has been made evident these days with the launch of two platforms. The first, the ChatGPT Translatorwhich is surprising not because it is an obvious and simple use case for AI, but because it is a logical indiscriminate copy of the services that already work, Google Translate and DeepL. Being able to do the same with AI shows that that problem seems solved. The translation of Gemma 3 27B was already good. TranslateGemma’s is even better, even with smaller models and challenging language pairs. And if it didn’t seem like it enough, Google has just presented its new generative AI models specifically aimed at translation. It is about TranslateGemmaa family with versions 4B, 12B and 27B (the latter, logically, the most capable) that allow these tasks to be carried out locally, privately and without connection to the cloud. They support 55 language pairs and of course they are prepared for the most popular ones (English, Spanish, Chinese, French, Hindi), but their creators already indicate that they are training them with 500 additional language pairs for the future. We are therefore facing a moment in which learning a language will probably end up becoming something more vocational or aspirational than something that we really need on a daily basis. Human translators, like human programmers, will still have valuebut once again what is clear is that AI is going to make this type of capability more accessible than ever. In Xataka | Some of the emails you read may not say exactly what was written. A forgotten Gmail setting is to blame

Science is on the verge of achieving something that would end our human experience as we knew it: suffering

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The Holy Grail of modern pain medicine has always been the same: achieving the analgesic power of morphine without its side effects such as respiratory depression, addiction or tolerance. And although until now it seemed impossible, one study has suggested that the key is not to ‘numb’ the body, but to ‘attack’ the way the brain processes suffering. The study. A team led by Gregory Corder of the University of Pennsylvania has developed a gene therapy that acts as a “switch” for chronic pain. What is revolutionary is not just that it works, but how it does it: it eliminates the emotional distress of pain without erasing the protective physical sensation, keeping the patient safe but free from suffering. The problem is not feeling, it is suffering. Pain has two very clear components: one that is sensory, which is necessary to human survival (as it is to withdraw the hand when we get burned), and the other is the affective or the emotional. This second is what generates the feeling of constant suffering that can destroy the quality of life of a patient who lives with chronic pain or neuropathic pain that affects the nervous system, such as the hated ‘sciatica’. According to the study, titled, the researchers identified a specific group of neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). These neurons are sensitive to opioids and are responsible for encoding the “unpleasantness” of pain, and this is where they have tried to attack, but surgically and without pills. The tool used. The scientists used a tool known as DREADD (Designer Receptors Activated Exclusively by Designer Drugs). To do this, through a viral vector, they inserted synthetic receptors specifically into the cingulate cortex neurons of mice with neuropathic pain. From there, they administered a drug that has no effect called DCZ. This compound, despite not doing anything to the body in mice, acts as a key that “turns off” the neurons that have been modified in their brain in a very specific way. The result. The chronic pain behavior disappeared and they began to act like completely healthy animals. However, when exposed to an acute thermal stimulus, they were able to withdraw their paw. In this way, his survival system was working, but his anxiety system was completely turned off. The AI ​​that reads pain. One of the biggest challenges in pain research is that mice can’t tell us “it hurts a 7 out of 10,” which is why scientists classically relied on biased tests. But this is over thanks to an AI called LUPEwhich is a Deep Learning platform and has the ability to analyze hundreds of hours of video of mice moving freely. But what is relevant here is that it has the ability to detect spontaneous micro-behaviors associated with pain that the human eye would miss. Thanks to LUPE, the team was able to objectively confirm that the pain relief was real and not an error of human interpretation. The opioid crisis. The most promising thing about the study published a few days ago is the security profile. Unlike morphine, which generates tolerance, that is, more and more doses of medication are needed to have an effect, and addiction, this gene therapy is completely the opposite. In this way, it does not generate addiction, meaning that the mouse does not have to seek a higher dose to maintain that sensation and the effect remained stable. The arrival of humans. Although the success in mice is resounding, the jump to humans is complex, since we are really different and requires many more safety studies. However, the path is set. The team is already planning the next steps towards clinical trials, although it is something that may take many years to become a reality in our daily lives. Images | Sasun Bughdaryan In Xataka | We have accepted that sport is “medicine” for the body. Now science is discovering its side effects

We knew almost nothing about the “black box” of life, the initial moment of fertilization: that is over

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In biology, human development, from the fertilization of an egg to the formation of the complete baby, has a large area called ‘black box’because we don’t know what happens there. We have a lot of data about what happens in the first days after fertilization and also during the last months thanks to ultrasounds. Worse, there is an area between the second and fourth weeks of development that is terra incognita. The ethics. It is without a doubt the great wall of developmental biology right now, since to see what happens to an embryo in these weeks we would have to have it in a culture dish for more than 14 days. But this is something that ethics does not allow, since after those days the embryo must be inside a uterus or destroyed. The change. Now science is working to find exactly how to see the embryo in this time window, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona achieved it. Specifically, it has achieved cultivate macaque embryoids which are embryo models derived from stem cells until day 25. In this way, processes that until now were hidden have emerged. A team of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona has managed to cultivate macaque embryoids (embryo models derived from stem cells) until day 25, revealing processes that until now remained hidden. And this has already given us data about how our body is formed. Gastrulation. Lewis Wolpert, a famous biologistused to say that “the most important moment in your life is not birth, nor marriage, nor death, but gastrulation.” And he was right. To understand this importance, you must know that during gastrulation the embryo stops being a simple sphere of equal cells and transforms into a complex structure with three different layers that will give rise to all the organs of the body. But it is also essential to be able to define the axes of the body, that is, knowing where the head will be, the tail and what is right and left. Something that until now was impossible to see because previous models of primate embryos ended up collapsing after day 17. The solution. The research has therefore used a new system of 3D suspension culture which has enabled macaque embryonic stem cells to self-organize and develop complex structures until day 25 outside the uterus. What they have seen. What researchers have observed in these “embryoids” is fascinating because of its similarity to natural embryos. As detailed in the paper from Nature, these models have recapitulated key events of the late gastrulation. Among this, the formation of the central nervous system stands out, the precursor of the digestive system, the first blood cells or even those that in the future will give rise to eggs and sperm. The most surprising thing is that the transcriptomic analysis (the study of which genes are active cell by cell) revealed that differentiation trajectories were similar to those found in natural monkey embryos during this stage. At last. This means that we have, for the first time, a reliable simulator to study human development. Since we share a large part of our biology with macaques, this model allows us to investigate the causes of abortions early spontaneous and congenital malformations without crossing the ethical red lines of experimentation with human embryos. They are not real embryos. This is something fundamental for the limits that ethics imposes on us that we mentioned at the beginning. What has been cultured in this case are not real embryos, but models derived from stem cells where neither eggs nor sperm were involved. This has the aspect that it can never become a viable living being if it is implanted in a uterus and its usefulness is limited only to laboratories to analyze how we are developing and revealing critical points where an embryo can be aborted. In Xataka | There are more and more men obsessed with one thing: donating their semen

The prince of Brunei asked to be made a Ferrari so secret that not even Ferrari knew it existed: the F90

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At the end of the eighties, a very special order knocked on the doors of the Pininfarina study. Prince Jefri Bolkiah, brother of the Sultan of Brunei, wanted to be designed a new exclusive Ferrari. The only condition was that this project be kept completely secret. In fact, it was kept so secret and for so many years, that not even Ferrari knew it existed until a series of photographs revealed them to the public and the brand itself decades later. This is the story of the only six Ferrari F90s that exist in the world. a car so mysterious They haven’t even seen it in Ferrari. The prince’s secret order The incredible story of this peculiar model came to light according to an interview that Speedholics made Enrico Fumia, director of design and development at Pininfarina in the late 1980s. In those years, Prince Jefri Bolkiah was one of Ferrari’s best clients, where I bought cars by the dozen to feed your large collection of cars made up of more than 7,000 cars. In 1988, an intermediary of Prince Jefri contacted the Pininfarina design studio, the Italian company responsible for designing some of the most famous Ferraris, with models such as the Ferrari FF, California, F12 Berlinetta or 458 Italia, among many other. The request was clear: I wanted six exclusive units of a Ferrari that only he would have. In exchange, the studio would receive an indecent amount of money, just at a time when the studio was not having a good financial streak. Without going into specific figures, the studio’s design manager only indicated in his interview that, with that commission, Jefri Bolkiah became the studio’s main source of income, above brands such as Ferrari, Maserati or Alfa Romeo. There it is nothing. The only condition that the prince set was that everything had to be done in the most absolute secrecy. So much so that not even Ferrari found out until 16 years later. Tap on the photo to go to the original message The project was baptized “F90”, so named because it was “the Ferrari of the nineties“. The design was built on the chassis of the Ferrari Testarossa – which was the star of the moment –, but with a completely new and original design in terms of body, cabin and roof, retaining only the engine, wheels and mirrors of the base model. Innovation and complexity in design In his interview, Enrico Fumia assured that “without a doubt, the F90 has been the most difficult and spectacular project we have ever done.” Among its most notable innovations was a unique sliding roof that slid over the rear window, becoming fully integrated to turn it into a convertible supercar. This solution was something completely unprecedented for the time and a major technical challenge, Fumia explained. But the fees paid by the coffers of the Sultan of Brunei more than covered the development cost. Making a Ferrari without Ferrari knowing was not easy. Fumia claimed that they tested the car at night, without any emblem of Prancing Horse and with the body completely camouflaged. As they did not have test drivers, the designer acknowledged that “sometimes I participated in the tests and, since the car was right-hand drive, when I was driving, another person had to sit in the passenger seat to pay the tolls at the highway exits.” In its design, Fumia was inspired by classic Ferrari models like the 1964 500 Superfast, with its peculiar oval front grille, the Ferrari 365 or the Ferrari 330 with its smooth and aerodynamic lines. Under the hood they mounted a 4.9-liter, 390 HP twin-cylinder V12 engine. After many difficulties, the six units of the F90 were delivered directly to Brunei and in the most absolute secrecy, where they have remained hidden in the royal collection of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah. They remained this way until 2002. Ferrari, what Ferrari? It was in that year when some mysterious photos began to circulate on the Internet in which the unprecedented silhouettes of an unknown Ferrari. Finally, in 2005, Fumi met with Ferrari and Pininfarina to reveal the project. The design manager was surprised by Maranello’s reaction. “It was better than we ever imagined,” Fumia said. “Ferrari officially recognized the F90 as an authentic Ferrari, without ever having seen or touched it,” confessed the former Pininfarina manager. As of today, and only by reference to the leaked photos, it is known that the Ferrari F90s were painted in black, blue, gray, red, white and green. But none of these cars have left the royal collection nor has it been used publicly, thus maintaining the aura of mystery and exclusivity that surrounds them to this day. In Xataka | In Dubai they don’t know what to do with so many abandoned luxury supercars: the less shiny side of getting rich Image | Nano Banana

We knew Tesla’s sales were crashing in 2025. We weren’t aware to what extent

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Dramatic figures. And it is not an exaggeration. It is the confirmation that something is not going well with Tesla’s sales in Europe. We already know that the first month of each quarter is usually especially bad for the company. October, the tenth of the year, has been particularly disastrous. A year to forget. If we add up Tesla’s sales in Europe so far this year, the reported figures are bad. In the first nine months of the year (now we will tell why we took this figure), Elon Musk’s company sold 173,694. A far cry from last year’s 242,976 units at the end of the third quarter. Specifically, 28.5% less. The figures are especially worrying for Tesla because the electric car market share grew in the same period from 13.1% to 16.1%. Therefore, its total market share has decreased from 2.5% in September 2024 to 1.7%. The market share hit among electric cars should, therefore, be much greater. Dramatic October. But October has been a dramatic month for Tesla. In the absence of having the data for the sum of all the European markets that ACEA, the employers’ association, will not present until the last week of November, we do know the results in the main European markets. Pay attention to the records it shows Electrek: Germany: 750 units and -53.5% compared to last year. Italy: 256 units and -47.1% compared to last year Netherlands: 645 units and -47.9% compared to last year Norway: 671 units and -50.2% compared to last year Portugal: 144 units and -58.7% compared to last year Austria: 97 units and -64.5% compared to last year Finland: 47 units and -67.6% compared to last year Sweden: 133 units and -88.7% compared to last year Denmark: 102 units and -86% compared to last year Spain? In Spain, Tesla has saved the furniture… and it has fallen by more than 30%. We say this because the company, between January and October 2025, has sold 7.58% more than last year. It is a clearly insufficient figure, taking into account that electric cars in Spain have increased by 86%, according to data from ANFAC. All in all, Tesla continues to lead the top two positions among the best-selling electric cars in our country. Of course, what was once an overwhelming leadership is now a much tighter battle. As of October, Tesla has sold 7,722 units of the Model 3 and, what is much more worrying for the company, 4,924 units of the Model Y. This is striking because the Kia EV3 It is already fighting head-to-head with the Tesla Model Y for being the second best-selling electric car of the year in Spain. He BYD Dolphin Surfwhich arrived in May 2025, is already in 2,796 units and is the fifth best-selling electric car in Spain. Between them, the Renault 5 but it has been adding units all year. BYD’s small electric car has sold 846 units this past month. That’s 791 more units than the Tesla Model 3 has registered. The first month. And Tesla has only added 55 units of the Model 3 in our country in October 2025. This is explained because the first months of each quarter (January-April-July-October) tend to be especially bad. The bulk of units of cars arriving from China, such as the Tesla Model 3, arrive and are accumulated to be sold in the last month of each quarter. The problematic thing for Tesla is that the registration figures are dismal even in that famous first month of the quarter. In Spain, the Tesla Model Y that dominated with an iron fist was the seventh best-selling car in October. And in just BYD sold more units of the Dolphin Surf in Spain than all the Teslas sold in Germany, a market much larger and with greater penetration of the electric car. The last quarter. It remains to be seen if Tesla manages to recover some ground in the last quarter, if it sinks a little more or, at least, disguises the results. Because it seems impossible that it will be able to compensate for a drop that at the end of the first three quarters exceeds 30%. It must be taken into account that rivals are tightening and eating up market share. Not only do traditional rivals have more supply and more competitive prices than years ago, BYD has expanded its presence in numerous markets and, according to SCMPBetween January and September 2025, the Chinese company accumulated almost 25,000 units throughout Europe. It is five times more than those registered in the same period of the previous year. It is very likely that it will not be enough to surpass Tesla this year, but it is likely that it will be close. Photo | Prometheus In Xataka | I have ridden a 100% autonomous XPeng Mona in a Chinese city. Tesla and Europe have a problem

A 4.4 million-year-old ankle has turned the history of bipedalism and everything we knew about our ancestors upside down.

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The origin of human bipedalism, the ability to walk on two legs, is one of the great debates in science today. For decades, scientists have wondered what the last common ancestor we share with us was like. chimpanzees and its characteristics. Now an ankle bone has ended up giving us the key we were looking for to rethink everything what we knew about our ancestors. The study. Published in Communications Biology and as the protagonist a 4.4 million year old ankle bone that belonged to a Ardipithecus ramidus. a hominid which was discovered in Ethiopia and which gives us many data about the history of human evolution. And this is because the conclusion is surprising: the ankle of this ancient hominid has surprising similarities with those of modern chimpanzees and gorillas. Something that makes us think that humans evolve from an ancestor similar to African apes, which makes us wonder about how and why we began to walk upright. The great debate. He Ardipithecus ramidusor “Ardi”, is essential in this case. It lived 4.4 million years ago and already displayed hominid characteristics, but combined primitive features such as a prehensile, ape-like big toe with human-derived features in the pelvis and skull. This is what suggests right now that an “early form of bipedalism” was used. The key is in the morphology of the talus, which in Ardi resembles that of African apes more than that of any other fossil hominin analyzed. The objective in this case is to know how our ancestors moved on the surface, but they also climbed trees vertically. This suggests that it made use of both early bipedalism and skills typical of arboreal life, placing Ardi in an intermediate position between Australopithecus and the great apes. And this bone is the fundamental key to knowing how the evolution to bipedalism took place. The challenge. This finding broadly challenges the traditional model of human evolution, which assumed that the last common ancestor with chimpanzees was a generalist and arboreal ape, alien to terrestrial life and bipedalism. New evidence indicates that humans most likely evolved from an African ancestor specialized in vertical climbing and also had plantigrade terrestrial locomotion. That is, with the soles of the feet completely supported like current gorillas and chimpanzees. A true hybrid between the two automotive models. The authors maintain that several lineages (humans, chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas) share a past adapted to mixed life between trees and soil. The subsequent evolution of bipedalism would have been built on that basis, little by little modifying the anatomy and locomotor abilities to stop climbing trees and move on to what we now all use in our daily lives. Its implications. The morphometric data of the ankle of Ardipithecus demonstrate the presence of a structure designed to “push” when walking and improve balance, but without completely losing the ability to grip. The evolutionary process towards complete bipedalism was much more gradual and less linear than what had originally been proposed by experts. Furthermore, the most recent studies not only focus on the talus, but also on the metatarsus and pelvis, confirming that Ardi could walk upright during his short journeys and return to trees to climb and take shelter. This duality is key to understanding how our ancestors adapted to different environments and ecological pressures. What changes. The hybrid anatomy of Ardipithecus ramidus dismantles the chimpanzee ancestor myth, and presents a new branch on our human evolutionary tree. Far from being a rarity, Ardi represents an example of evolutionary transition and the complexities that may exist in the origins of our species. Thus, scientists propose abandoning this concept of a straight line in evolution and embracing an adaptive mosaic between different species. Images | Wikipedia Satya deep In Xataka | The skull that changes everything: a million-year-old fossil suggests that ‘Homo sapiens’ did not come from Africa

Bill Gates has been a famous “workaholic” but he knew who to hire to solve problems: the lazy ones

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Bill Gates is one of the most decisive figures in the evolution of technology of the last 40 years. Found one of the most innovative companies of his time can only be achieved through a lot of work. However, Bill Gates himself has stated that he can be a little lazy at times. The technology magnate has been away from the first line of command at Microsoft for some time, and he dedicates all his time and fortune to the philanthropic work carried out since foundation he created with his ex-wife Melinda Gates. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation invests in projects that encourage development, education and well-being of people in developing countries and at risk of social exclusion. One of his recent hobbies related to raising awareness about these socially conscious investments has been to create the Unconfused Me podcast in which he chats with personalities related to the scientific, teaching or business fields. In one of his last talks with San Khan (founder of Khan Academy) the magnate confessed that In his school days he was quite lazy. With an intelligence quotient (IQ) of 160, Bill Gates He has always had a knack for mathematics.. However, the millionaire himself confessed in his autobiographical book ‘Source code: My beginnings’he always tried to do as little as possible in class to pass the law of least effort. In eighth grade, his teacher reproached him for his attitude: “How can you be so lazy? You could be very good at this,” the teacher told him. “But we’re not doing anything interesting. I had this idea that the less effort you put in, the cooler you are.” Bill Gates states that, that teacher was crucial in his life since thanks to him his attitude towards learning changed since the teacher provided him with books and resources that encouraged his interest to continue moving forward and achieve a goal. Put a lazy person to solve a problem Bill Gates took his attitude towards effort to the extreme in the early years of Microsoft, when was able to remember car license plates that were parked in front of the Microsoft offices and relate them to their employees to know, at a glance through the window, which employees were still in the office and which had already gone home. In a so competitive scene As is the case with technological innovation, it is surprising to come across a phrase attributed to Bill Gates: “I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” However, in it we can see represented the Bill Gates lazy and unmotivated in his school years. In reality, it’s not that Bill Gates is excited about being surrounded by sloths, but rather the meaning of his statement aligns with what he learned from his eighth grade teacher: the important thing is to have a clear objective. If your goal is not to overwork, then you will find a way to get the job done as easily as possible. The motivation to do something has been so important in Bill Gates’ career that even people around him have used it as a tool to prevent the technology magnate from neglecting his duties at the helm of Microsoft. In Xataka | Bill Gates was so obsessed with driving a Porsche 959 that he managed to change the laws that prevented him from doing so Image | Flickr

That pleasure of scratching when something pikes you is a hoax. And our mothers already knew

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A summer afternoon, a Zumba mosquito in your ear and at minute you already have a red lump in the arm. The first thing you do is scratch, one, two, three … up to ten times or more. And the more you scratch, the more you want to continue. Your mother warns you: “Don’t scratch yourself, it’s worse!” And now it turns out that science is right. Scratch does not relieve. Researchers at the University of Miami They have demonstrated that scratching is not an effective method to calm the itching. On the contrary: it activates what they call the “itching cycle.” The more you scratch, the more the skin is inflamed, the more histamine it is released and more itch. A vicious circle difficult to break. So what do I do? The recommendation is clear: if you can resist the impulse to scratch, do it. And if not, choose to rub gently with your fingers or stroke with a soft brush. As the team led by Tasuku Akiyama explainsgently caress the skin, even to the side of the exact point that itchs, send signals that block the itching before it reaches the brain. A year later, the same effect It was checked in another experiment with 61 volunteers With a simple trick: pass a makeup brush slowly on the skin. In addition, in the face of histamine -induced itching – a classic molecule in allergic reactions -, It was seen that soft skin friction Sensation also decreases. According to Dr. Trisha Pasricha in her column for Washington Postthis technique can reduce up to 12% plus itching than a simple scratch. What if I crawled? Scratching relieves momentary because the generated pain inhibits the itching signal in the nervous system. That is the reason that it is so pleasant. The problem It arrives later: Active scratching immune cells called mast cells, which release histamine and other inflammatory molecules. The result is more inflammation and more desire to scratch. This was demonstrated by a study by the University of Pittsburgh, Posted in Science: When mice were prevented from scratching – with protective necklaces or eliminating sensory neurons – inflammation decreased dramatically. However, not everything is negative: the same team, led by Daniel Kaplan, discovered that scratching also helps eliminate bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureusone of the most common in skin infections. This would explain why, despite its damage, scratch has remained for millions of years in evolution. Cats, dogs, horses and practically all animals are also scratched. How does itching occur? Not everything that brushes our skin causes itching. As Dr. Pasricha remembersa cotton shirt does not usually bother, while wool does. It is the spatial contrast theory: when only a small group of nerve fibers is activated, the brain translates it as itching. If the activation is broader or more intense, the signal becomes pain. On the other hand, According to The Conversationin the spinal cord there are inhibitory neurons that act as filters: they let or block the itching signal. When these “guardians” fail, chronic itching may appear, a problem that affects about 8% of the population. Another way is through infection. Just see someone scratch or even an insect video to start feeling it in our own skin. Dr. Zhou-Feng Chen Remember that this phenomenon, studied in several experiments, demonstrates how the brain unconsciously mimics the sensations of others. Have you already entered itching when reading this? A double -face protective function. In the background, the itching fulfills a defensive function: we are alerted to possible threats such as insects or irritating substances. Scratching, although pleasant, is a brief relief that inflammation usually worsens. Instead, caress or rub the area offers a lasting relief without damage. The next time a mosquito ruins your night, remember: scratching gives momentary pleasure, but also worsens inflammation. Science coincides with the same as your mother: better a caress or a brush than desperate nails. Image | Freepik Xataka | Compact, practical and very cheap: this is the device to keep mosquito bites at bay

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