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We thought that using a lot of emojis was immature. Psychology has just shown that the opposite is true.

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For many people, using a lot of emojis in emails, text messages or work chats is a sign of immaturity or unprofessionalism that should not be overlooked. However, the most modern psychology has analyzed the reason for using so many emojis and the reality is that It is not a childish actbut a desperate attempt to recover the emotional nuances that plain text has taken from us. The context. Conveying sarcasm in plain text is undoubtedly a great challenge, and not doing it correctly can result in a message that transmits an edge tone that can ‘scare’ the person to whom we send it. That is why using emojis or any type of expression strategy over text is what saves us from transmitting something that is not what we want. Non-verbal communication. When we speak face to face, words are only a fraction of the message, as tone of voice, posture, a raised eyebrow or a smile convey the true intention behind what we say. In the digital ecosystem, that layer of communication disappears, leaving our WhatsApp or Slack messages at the mercy of the interpretation (and often, pessimism) of the recipient. And this is where emojis come in, since, far from being simple decorations, psychology defines them as substitutes for non-verbal communication. Without going any further, an article published in Frontiers in Psychology in 2021 demonstrated that emojis function as real affective symbols that help convey pure emotional content. It can be measured. An investigation of Journal of Nonverbal Behavior found that adding positive emojis to a completely neutral message makes the recipient perceive it as positive. Likewise, negative emojis can instantly darken the tone of a text that has no point of malice behind it. In privacy, as the magazine points out Symbolic Interactionthe use of emojis in romantic conversations dramatically increases clarity of intentions, reducing the feared ambiguity of the first digital flirtations that in person can be much clearer thanks to the tone or looks we use. There is not a single emoji. With all this evidence, the logical conclusion would seem to be: “Use as many emojis as you can so they can understand you better.” But science warns that there is a catch, since the meaning of emojis is not stable. Here we must keep in mind that, unlike words, which have agreed definitions in dictionaries, emojis are tremendously dependent on the context, the platform and, above all, the generation of the reader. What for a boomer or a millennial It is a simple friendly smile, for Generation Z it can be interpreted as irony, passive-aggressiveness or even contempt. He is the king. The effectiveness of the emoji depends entirely on where and with whom you use it. Research published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports support that, in informal communication, emojis reduce ambiguous interpretations and bring interlocutors closer. However, In the workplace everything changessince, although it brings closeness, it can also alter the perception of competence of the person sending the message. It has even been seen that in formal emails or with superiors, an excess of emojis can generate communicative “noise” and detract from the professionalism or appropriateness of the message. Images | Tim Witzdam In Xataka | Psychology says that people who thank drivers when crossing the street don’t do it just out of gratitude.

We had a lot of fun watching robot fights. Until we saw how one decapitated another with a kick

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In the video two robots appear in a ring similar to that of UFC fights. The cameraman zooms out and at that moment one of the robots throws a spectacular roundhouse kick and hits his enemy in the head. This one falls round like a human would. A human probably wouldn’t get up after a hit like that. The robot did. He does it in an amorphous, very science fiction way, twisting himself so that his legs allow him to do it again. The fight continues in a slightly ridiculous way: the robot that has decapitated him continues trying to give those type of roundhouse kicks in the best Van Damme style, while the poor decapitated robot continues fighting with his head completely detached and hanging from his body. The video, absolutely viral on X, was shared by Elon Musk on his official account this Saturday. It has 11 million visits at the time of writing these lines. Accompanying the video, a message: “robot fights are funny.” We could consider it that way, of course, but since it happened with the April Robot Half Marathonthat fight is once again reliable proof that the Chinese robotics industry is advancing non-stop. A year ago those robots seemed quite absurd to us. They ran clumsily and the edition of the race was a disaster, and something similar happened with the humanoid robots that also They got into kickboxing fights. They were fun to watch because, again, they didn’t look particularly lethal. Chinese humanoid robots get serious With these things change. This year’s event, called URKL and organized by the Chinese robotics company EngineAIshowed those robot fights of 32 international teams that you can see on the Shenzen Story YouTube channel. All of these teams, yes, used the same humanoid robot, the T800 model of this company. In fights it is true that the robots are still clumsy and that when they end up hitting the opponent they do so more by luck than anything else, but also that the aforementioned evolution of these humanoid robots is palpable. The prize for the winner of the tournament, which is held in several sessions, will take home a prize of 10 million yuan (approximately 1.3 million euros) The T800 robot, the absolute protagonist of these combats, measures 173 centimeters and has 29 movable joints throughout its body. Each one of them has a price of 36,000 euros and its weight ranges between 75 and 85 kg. In their heads they have an artificial vision model and an omnidirectional radar and a processor that is responsible for computing all the data that arrives. The motors in the joints can develop up to 450 Nm of torque, which allows you to perform, for example, those striking flying kicks in the video. Beyond the specifications and the spectacular nature of the fights, the objective of these competitions is to promote the development of Chinese robotics, but also to expand its potential applications. Fighting is a perfect way to validate both the design and hardware of the robots themselves and their software. Zhao Tongyang, CEO of EngineAI, explained in Global Times how “we want to use the competition to drive industry research and development.” The organizers also commented how this competition was about more than just brute strength, and evaluated both the effectiveness of the blows and stability, defensive and evasive ability, and general durability. And certainly the robots are beginning to show that they fight better and better. Let’s hope that is never its true purpose. In Xataka | Making a robotic hand is “100 times more difficult” than building the entire robot. These Chinese companies are determined to solve it

“they paint a lot for the Mediterranean communities of Spain”

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Between July 15 and August 15 the worst of the summer is concentrated. And it’s not a figure of speech: the hottest June day never registered in Spaindoes not even reach the top 20 of the hottest days ever recorded. Those four weeks are hell: the letters that the weather hands us every year. That is, the dog days. There is nothing new here if I tell you that it will be hot. What is new is that we arrived with two heat waves, 1,682 deaths attributable to heat and meteorologists like José Miguel VIñas warning that “They paint a lot for the Mediterranean communities of Spain“We arrived, then, with our tongues hanging out. What has happened to the dog days in the last 50 years? That’s a good question: if we go to the studio Heat waves in Spain since 1975 from AEMET, we found very interesting things. In general terms, the 75 heat waves that we have experienced in recent years follow a distribution very similar to that of decades ago. The window has not widened too much: it has moved forward somewhat, but (above all) it has filled up. The number of days of heat waves has multiplied by 2.3, but the only substantial thing that has changed is that: where there was heat before, there is now much more. The least obvious consequence… is that the traditional alarm calendar and the real risk calendar have become decoupled. If we look at the MoMo (mortality estimates from the Carlos III Health Institute), May left 123 deaths due to heat; June, 1,031; and the first week of July (which coincided with the second heat wave), 622. We have already borne a large part of the ‘bill’ of a normal summer and the worst part has not yet begun. And what can we expect? Right now the least risky forecast is simple: “a powerful ridge of African air, dry, very warm and dusty” will cause temperatures to skyrocket in the coming days. The situation is so extreme that, always according to the available models, there are some areas where temperatures close to absolute records are expected. And we must not forget that we are already close to 40 in many parts of the country (the provinces of Lleida and Zaragoza They scored 39 or more the day before yesterday and Valencia stayed close). A push of heat on this situation is just what we don’t need. Are we really going to reach 45 degrees? It is very difficult to make temperature estimates for so many days (even more so when it seems that there will be haze), but the possibility is on the table. They are alsothe hellish nights. Whatever happens in the next few days, it makes sense for us to start preparing. Image | BenBaso In Xataka | The networks are filling up with maps that promise the end of the heat. One thing is what we would like and another, very different, is what we know

There are a lot of people replacing the oil on ham toast with coffee and orange. And oddly enough, it makes sense.

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“You insist on putting olive oil on our Iberian ham toast and this is like putting sugar on top of a chocolate cake.” Víctor Sanchego did not know it, but with those words was about to make thousands of people prepare the strangest breakfast we’ve seen in a long time. How come you don’t have to add oil to the ham? Sanchego’s argument is that “the fat of Iberian ham contains more than 60% oleic acid, the same component of extra virgin olive oil.” Therefore, as happens in a perfumery when we have already worn several colognes, when we mix oil and ham at the same time our taste buds become saturated. “Instead of helping it enhance the flavor, it is subtracting it,” says the ham man. The reality, of course, is more complex. The general idea is true for Iberian ham: adding oil (especially if it is an intense and complex one) blurs the flavor profile and can actually oversaturate the bite. This, however, does not happen with the rest of the hams or with the rest of the oils. It is, so to speak, a borderline case. And a well-known one, at that. The normal thing when we talk about Iberian ham, in fact, is that it is recommended to enjoy it alone or with an accompaniment that cleanses the palate, such as a piece of neutral bread. Nobody usually proposes eating a plate of ham with a glass of EVOO on the side. The striking thing about all this is not that. The striking thing is the coffee with orange zest. Because Víctor Sanchego does not propose to eat ham with white bread, nothing like that. He suggests smearing the bread in a mixture of black coffee and orange peel, toasting it and, now, putting the Iberian ham on top. It’s a strange thing, yes; but we cannot define it as madness either. We said before that the ideal thing is to eat Iberian ham with something that ‘cleanses the palate’ and Sanchego’s idea goes directly there: coffee, due to its dry and intense qualities, allows us to enhance the organoleptic properties of our ham. Is it the most interesting decision? Well, the truth is that I couldn’t say. On a theoretical level, there could be dozens of similar combinations that fit better with our usual organoleptic repertoire; but without a doubt it is bold and many of those who try it (on social networks) They are delighted with the result. And that, without a doubt, is good news. Not because of the ham, not because of the coffee, not because of the orange zest. It’s good news because culinary Talibanism It is a practice that greatly impoverishes our understanding of food. And it limits us for no reason. Being open to ‘playing’ with products as iconic as Iberian ham is a symptom of a gastronomic maturity that, used well, can help us resolve problems in a much simpler way. big problems of the food security of the century. Image | Stephan Coudassot | Nathan Dumlao In Xataka | We’ve been telling ourselves for 100 years that breakfast is the “most important meal of the day.” The problem is that it is not true In Xataka | We’ve gone from “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” to “I grab something quick and stick with it.” And that has problems A version of this theme was published in 2025

“Now there is money everywhere and if you have a quality company, you will have a lot of funds waiting”

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Like scouts for football or basketball clubs, investment funds and large companies use a figure with the same purpose. They are the ‘scouts’ or startup scouts. Their mission: to find promising companies when they have not yet been discovered, to be the first or among the first to invest or collaborate with them. In silver, arrive before anyone else. “These ‘scout’ programs become popular during approximately 2021-2022, in the midst of valuation hysteria for technology companies. It is a time of prosperity for the funds, which begin to see that the companies’ income multiples begin to grow very quickly,” says Kintxo Cortés, referring to the fact that the investment enthusiasm resulted in the companies’ income having to be multiplied each time by a higher number (x4, then x6, then x11…) to arrive at your assessment. For reference, the current 5 trillion dollars of capitalization of Nvidia are equivalent to multiplying its annual income by 20. In the case of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, the figure would come from multiplying turnover by 11 and in that of Apple, by 10. “In venture capital what is happening is that money is a commodity. There are very good funds, so it is not only a race to see who finds the company that grows the best but also who enters a promising company the earliest,” explains Cortés, who has been a scout for four years. He currently collaborates with the Accel and Samaipata funds, in addition to working at the connectivity company Gigs. “Now there is money everywhere and if you are an entrepreneur and have a quality company, you will have a lot of funds that will want to put money into you.” In an environment like the one Cortés draws, investment funds can only be differentiated in two ways. One of them is with its team of professionals, capable of adequately supporting the startup. The other is with speed. Whoever gets to the entrepreneur first has an advantage when it comes to investing. So the funds have diversified their search for projects with potential. The objective is to enter capital very soon, even with a small position. And this is where the scouting activity unfolds. They are specialists and know the entrepreneurship ecosystem inside out in certain areas or niches. They allow the funds to gain capillarity that they do not have with their staff alone. This way they have access to a greater number of companies and can glimpse promising teams operating in interesting sectors as soon as possible. Although this scout profile is not the only one that scans the landscape in search of attractive startups. Gema García González, director of Open Innovation and Coporte Venturing at Repsol, is in charge of a team of ten people dedicated to reinforcing the company’s technological development with external resources. “We try to be flexible, we work with other research centers, with other corporations and, of course, with startups. The entrepreneurial ecosystem has many pieces, it has grown a lot in recent years and can contribute a lot to us in developments that we want to accelerate,” he explains. In this case the scouts are on staff. Thus, the company has invested in more than 35 startups and today works with 21 companies, detected by its analyst service. “We do not invest in what any investment fund can invest in, we invest in something that can be strategic for the company, in startups with which we want to collaborate,” says García González. Repsol scouts, working within the framework of its R&D center, Tech Lab, comb the entrepreneurial ecosystem in search of circular economy, energy optimization or renewable hydrogen projects. “My team has to dedicate part of its time to being very connected to the ecosystem. It needs to have a good network of contacts with other corporations, with other investment funds, go to conferences and startup events and see which platforms are the best to launch technological challenges,” explains García González. He clarifies that one of the formulas for finding interesting projects is the launch of contests and challenges that reward the best solutions to a given problem. Don’t let the next ‘PayPal Mafia’ escape The connection with the entrepreneurial world is essential. In the technology sector, a trend that has been seen for a few years has been accentuated. “There are companies that are doing very well in technology and have many employees who begin to set up other companies because they have access to liquidity, either because the company goes public or they can move shares in the secondary market,” says Cortés. “They find themselves with a lot of money and the desire to continue building things.” The phenomenon is not new and is reminiscent of the success of ‘PayPal Mafia’a symbol of that diaspora that sometimes occurs in technology companies. Many talented employees and deep pockets who decide to undertake can emerge from them. From the early days of PayPal came Elon Musk, the founder of LinkedIn Reid Hoffman and the investor Peter Thiel. And other employees started projects such as YouTube, Yelp or the social application Slide, acquired by Google. More recently, the brain drain at OpenAI also illustrates how talent within one startup ends up spawning other startups. That’s where the Amodei brothers came from.which they founded Anthropicformer chief scientist Ilya Sutskever (Safe Superintelligence) or former CTO Mira Murati (Thinking Machines Lab). The great value of Kintxo Cortés for the funds with which he collaborates is his network of contacts with employees and former employees of the companies where he has worked, especially Airbnb, Shopify and Trade Republic. That connection is key for investing entities, which do not have the structure on their own to delve into the ins and outs of the projects formed by former employees of the technology companies. Even fewer are able to discern which employees they should pay attention to, whether because they are the sharpest, most talented, or best positioned. A corporation like Repsol must also be clear about which … Read more

Spain had a master plan for the European fighter. The problem is that Germany just got a girlfriend with a lot of “money”

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In 1986, Spain, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom decided to join forces to build the Eurofighter Typhoon. It took almost two decades to turn it into realitybut that project left a key lesson: in Europe, fighters are not built with engineering alone, but with industrial and political balances that sometimes last longer than the technology itself. The collapse and plan B. It we count last week. He collapse of the Future Combat Air System has not only been the failure of a large European military program of 100,000 million euros, it has also been the moment in which Spain understood that he could not wait for France and Germany to resolve their industrial wars. For years, the FCAS It was sold as the large sixth-generation European fighter, but tensions between Airbus and Dassault Aviation they ended up blocking the distribution of work, leadership and technological architecture. When Berlin withdrew, Madrid lost more than just a partner: it lost the pillar that supported its own bet. FCAS concept The Spanish exit. Spain had been moving in silence for some time. With Indra gaining weight in defense and with growing conversations with Saab, the idea was clear: if FCAS sank, there was room to build an alternative axle with Germany and Sweden around satellite technologies such as sensors, combat cloud, accompanying drones and command systems. It was not yet a “new fighter” as such, but it was a survival platform industrial so as not to be tied to Paris. It was a lateral route to keep the Spanish option alive within the sixth European generation. Italy changes the board. And then Italy has appeared. Leonardo’s new management has made it clear that it would be delighted to open the door of the Global Combat Air Program to Germany. On paper, that is a logical invitation: Berlin brings money, industry and experience accumulated with the Eurofighter Typhoon. But strategically it is a bomb for Spain. Because the centerpiece of your plan B (Germany) could stop looking towards the Swedish axis and turn towards Rome, London and Tokyo. In a matter of weeks, the Spanish escape route could become a dead end. Germany is looking for a leading role. The German movement also has internal logic. Berlin does not want to be a secondary partner. He made it clear within the FCAS and he is repeating it now: if he enters another program, he wants a role proportional to your investment and its industrial weight. That sits poorly with France, where Dassault Aviation never wanted to let go control, but it fits much better with Italian flexibility. Furthermore, BAE Systems and the German branch of Airbus already they cooperated successfully on the Eurofighter. For Berlin, GCAP is starting to look less like an alternative and more like a logical continuation. The Spanish dilemma. And here is the big crack for Spain. If Germany joins GCAP, Madrid stays trapped between two worlds: a mortally wounded FCAS and an alternative plan that loses its most important partner before consolidating. Spain can try to continue punch to France, but that would mean accepting a (much) more subordinate role. You could also look for a direct approach to Italy or even Japan and the United Kingdom, but arriving late to an already structured program reduces a lot the negotiation margin. The risk is brutal: being left out of the table where the next great European air combat ecosystem is decided. Europe repeats its old problem. All this once again reveals the great industrial drama European: too many projects, too many egos and, above all, too much overlap. While the United States and China move forward with centralized programs, Europe continues to fragment its resources between rival blocs. In that sense, Spain believed it had found a safety net after the FCAS. The problem is that this network depended on Germany… and now Germany has a new dance couple. Image | Picryl In Xataka | Spain, France and Germany had joined together to illuminate the “European fighter” of the future: now that path is dead In Xataka | The European fighter has died, but Europe still has one last bullet to avoid the F-35: the alliance of Spain and Sweden

It can save you a lot of time every day (and now it’s cheaper)

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When working in front of the computer, anything we can do or have to save time, the better. An example that we all have very internalized is having one ultrawide monitor or two monitors above the desktop, something that allows you to work with more windows open at the same time. But be careful how good a Stream Deck can be for us: you have this MK.2 model in white reduced to 129.99 euros. Elgato Stream Deck MK.2 White – Studio Controller, 15 Macro Keys, Activate Actions in Apps and Software like OBS, Twitch, YouTube and Others, Works on Mac and PC The price could vary. We earn commission from these links If this is out of your budget and you want a cheaper option, you also have the Stream Deck Mini available for 77.25 euros. It is true that it is not its lowest price, but it’s cheaper than the previous one. And the only difference is that, instead of having 15 keys, it only has 6. A very versatile and customizable gadget to work with This device has always been closely associated with the world of streaming, but it is useful in many other areas. It is a composite panel, in this model, by 15 keys that we can customize almost to the millimeter. There are thousands of possible options: from assigning an application to one of those buttons (for example, to open Spotify or the email manager) to much more complex actions. What do we mean by that? Let’s imagine that, to work, you need to have three or four programs open, such as the Internet browser or Photoshop. With Elgato software, you can customize one key to open everything at once, ideal when starting the work day. You can also customize the keys for certain specific functions of tools such as Excelso it will also help you once you get to work on your day. Furthermore, since they are LCD keys, they also you can customize the look they havewhich makes it very intuitive to use. It is true that it is not a cheap gadget, but it is very useful to improve daily ‘workflow’. And, although it is not at an all-time low (which is approximately 92 euros), it is a great price if we take into account that it was costing almost 170 euros a few weeks ago. Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Elgato In Xataka | DDR4 or DDR5? What RAM to choose so as not to pay even more than necessary in the middle of the price crisis In Xataka | This is the gaming tower that I would buy. The computers with the best quality-price ratio for gaming recommended by Xataka

There are a lot of people who want to turn potato omelette into the “new pizza”

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The potato omelette is almost certainly the most ‘homemade’ dish in the Spanish recipe book. In fact, more than a ‘dish’ it is a ‘symbol’ of traditional cuisine, of all life. And yes, it’s true: it has always been available in bars, cafes and restaurants; but the queen of tortillas was (proudly) something that was made at home. But not anymore. When one stands in front of the Navarra factory of Natural Prepared (the manufacturer of the 60 million tortillas that Mercadona sells each year) it is inevitable to think that this train has already passed. As they say in DAP, the industrial process is fascinating (each tortilla is fried at a different temperature!) and, at the same time, it is a clear piece of how the industry is betting everything to ensure that Juan Roig’s vision comes true: let’s stop cooking. And the tortilla is the battlefield. We will return to the Mercadona tortilla, but it is not the only actor at play. Martinuca was born just after the pandemic and, with the impetus of Maria Pombohas achieved a turnover of more than seven million euros for its premium tortillas at home in 2025 alone – more than double that of the previous year. And that’s only with four locations in Madrid and Barcelona. Its objective is quite clear: “elevate the Spanish tortilla to a global icon, as the Italians did with pizza“. And the reference is interesting because, de facto, the tortilla is following a ‘pattern’ similar to the one that pizza followed 20 or 30 years ago: the sector is growing in the hypermassive industrial product and in the premium (with a huge step in delivery). And why now and not 20 years ago? First of all, for a technical issue. As our colleague Miguel Ayuso explainswe are talking about the first fresh tortillas that hit the shelves. “Until then there were only tortillas that were pasteurized in their own packaging and the juiciness was greatly compromised,” Sergio Beni told DAP. Since Palacios/Fuentetaja began to grow the market a decade ago, until Elaborados Naturales has managed to become the first player at a national level, the technical, logistical and distribution revolution has been enormous. But “being able to do it” has only been part of the process. The other is that we have stopped cooking. We are doing it, in fact. According to the report “Convenience, the super power that changes everything” that has just been published, the average daily time spent cooking has fallen to 24.5 minutes, 41% of consumers usually eat in a hurry and ready-to-eat dishes grew by 55% between 2022 and 2025. Mercadona takes a third of that pie. What’s interesting is that, for the first time, respondents say they go to these products for price. It is not clear that this is true because the prices are high compared to food prepared at home; but even if it were a simple rationalization, it is interesting. It is not in vain that the majority of Spaniards continue to say that they like to cook. But weren’t we wanting to stop cooking? In DAP, Beni explained that “people no longer want to cook at home. They want to cook as a hobby, but you want that time you use to cook for your things, to play paddle tennis, to go to the gym, to read a book, to study or to make your life. You don’t want to spend that time cooking. Before our mothers spent two hours cooking and we don’t want that anymore, we want to spend that time on other things and products that are good and that are good.” However, even though There is a lot of data that proves them right.this is still a business story. “Cooking” is becoming “plating things.” It is true that the 20th century has been a century in which more and more stages of food processing have been taken outside of domestic kitchens. Today, our country only 28% of Spaniards cook from fresh foods. In fact, if we go to the dataWe can see that millennials eat 30% more often in restaurants than any other generation; When they cook, they spend less time (one hour less per week than Generation It’s US data, but we can find a similar process in all Western countries. That is to say, the discourse that kitchens are going to disappear is the framework for the next step of integration between the agri-food industry and domestic kitchens. A regulative ideal, a scenario that helps normalize what we already do (but without feeling bad about it). Will they be successful? Nobody knows, but it is clear that they are going to try hard. The Spanish tortilla is the best example. Image | instagram / Miguel Ayuso In DAP | We visited the Navarra factory where Mercadona’s potato tortillas are made: they make one and a half per Spaniard per year

There’s a reason you stop to pet any cat you pass on the street (and it says a lot more about you than you think).

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There’s something that happens to me every time I walk down the street and pass a cat. It doesn’t matter if you’re perched on a wall, looking out of a window, or just sitting on the sidewalk watching the world go by. Arrest. Greetings. I extend my hand slowly, wait to see if it comes closer, and if it does, I pet it. It is not a conscious decision: it is automatic. It also happens to me with dogs or any other animal that crosses my path. For a long time I thought it was just a personal quirk. But it turns out not. Psychology and neuroscience have been studying exactly that gesture for years—that almost uncontrollable impulse to seek contact with a cat—and what they have found says much more about who we are than what appears at first glance. The first thing to understand is that in this bond, the cat has the last word. It’s not like petting a dog, which usually comes alone and enthusiastically. Cats are selective, unpredictable and much less invasive in their displays of affection. Therefore, what science says about this exchange has a particular complexity. a study, collected by Science Alert measured the hormone levels of owners and cats during 15-minute sessions of physical contact at home. The results were eloquent: when contact was relaxed—stroking, gentle hugs, rocking—oxytocin levels rose in both people and animals. But there was an indispensable condition: the interaction could not be forced. Cats had to be able to walk away if they wanted to.. “The hormone flows when the cat feels safe and comfortable,” the study authors wrote. What would happen when that condition was not met was just as revealing. According to Vice owners who tried to hug cats that didn’t want to be hugged saw their oxytocin levels drop, not rise. And the same would happen in the animal. The forced hug does not activate love: it turns it off. There is something deeply human in that. Oxytocin, cortisol and a 150 hertz purr Oxytocin is the hormone that scientists call “love” or “bonding.” It is the same one that is triggered when we hug someone we love, when a mother sees her newborn child, when there is real trust between two people. That it also appears in contact with a cat—and that it appears in the cat as well—is not a minor fact. The connection with animals and the increase in oxytocin is not new in scientific research. A review published in Frontiers in Psychology in 2012 already documented that interaction with animals produced measurable increases in oxytocin and reductions in cortisol, the hormone associated with stress. But studies on cats in particular came later and with important nuances. Researchers in Japan published in MDPI Animals an experiment with 32 cat owners: those who freely interacted with their animals showed significant hormonal changes compared to non-contact rest periods. A 2002 study already documented that the increase in oxytocin generated by gentle contact with cats helped reduce cortisol and, consequently, blood pressure and even the perception of pain. It is one of the works collected by Laura Elin Pigott, professor of Neuroscience at London South Bank University, in his analysis published in The Conversation. But there is a third player in this equation that is often overlooked: the purr. According to a synthesis of research collected by PetShun the frequency of a cat’s purr—which ranges wildly between 25 and 150 hertz—falls within what specialists call the “biomechanical stimulation range.” It is literally the same range of frequencies used in clinical vibration therapy to promote tissue repair and bone density. Some studies suggest that Listening to that sound can reduce cortisol levels by 10% to 20% in just 15 minutes of exposure. It’s not magic or intuition new age. It is physics and biochemistry. With a dog the bond is automatic. With a cat, you have to earn it But not all animals produce this effect in the same way. And understanding that difference is key to understanding what it says about you that you are looking for cats. In a 2016 experiment, scientists measured oxytocin in pets and their owners before and after ten minutes of play. The dogs saw an average 57% increase in their oxytocin levels. Cats, just 12%. The difference, according to researchers collected by Science Alertdoes not reflect feline coldness but rather evolutionary history: dogs were domesticated for millions of years for constant visual contact and dependence on humans. Cats, no. That’s why they reserve that hormonal surge—and that confidence—for the moments when they feel truly safe. In other words: with a dog, the emotional bond is almost automatic. With a cat, you have to earn it. And that completely changes what it says about the person looking for it. What stopping on the street to greet a cat says about you A study from Nottingham Trent University, published in PLOS ONE by Lauren Finka and her team with a sample of more than 3,300 cat owners, found something that at first seems striking: certain personality traits observed in the owners also appeared in their cats. The researchers’ hypothesis is that cats could be reflecting, in part, the personalities of those who care for them. It is not a minor fact: it suggests that the relationship is not one-way and that the human-feline bond is so real that it leaves a mark on both. On the other hand, research on people who prefer the company of cats consistently points to certain shared traits. a study published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications analyzed 319 young adult cat owners and found that pet attachment was positively correlated with empathy, emotional regulation, and perceived social support. In other words, Those who build a solid bond with their cat tend to also have greater empathic capacity in their human relationships. This finding connect with what Faunalyticsan organization that synthesizes research on the human-animal bond, has documented: people who live with companion animals are … Read more

“I think it’s the most valid criticism of AI right now, there is a lot of expense”

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The artificial intelligence race is causing large technology companies to squander enormous sums of money to have the best AI, the one that the most people use and, above all, the one that generates the most money (three concepts that are far from the same thing and, rather, let them tell Google). According to Goldman Sachs databig tech and their infrastructure providers have on their roadmap to spend more than a trillion dollars on chips, data centers and software. The million dollar question is: is there a return after that investment? The CEO of OpenAI, one of the companies in the fight and certainly one of the most interested (it does not have the muscle of veterans like Google, Meta or Microsoft), has already recognized it in an interview for CNBC: It is absolutely normal to worry about that spending on AI due to the waste and the uncertainty of when they will get their reward (if it ever arrives). Sam Altman’s statements. Asked about the doubts generated by AI, he responded bluntly that it is “the fairest criticism that can be made of AI at this moment.” And he added: “I know big things are happening, but I know there is a lot of waste.” He also put on the table the two questions that companies that adopt AI in their processes ask: how long do they have to wait for this change to be noticed in their income and how long for costs to be under control. Spoiler: taking into account the latest movements from Uber and Microsofttwo completely successful companies, things are looking bad. The most interesting thing about this display of honesty is where they come from. Altman is the person who has raised the most money for fund OpenAIone of the leading companies in the AI ​​sector but also one of the newcomers, a baby compared to mythical companies that have been dominating the technology for decades. That Altman talks about waste is a before and after in the industry’s discourse. Why is it important. Until now, the ROI of AI has been a concept on the lips of skeptical analysts, economists and people who disbelieve this boom who point directly to a bubble about to burst. But Altman has integrated it into his corporate discourse and that represents a paradigm shift: it is no longer a critical position from outside the sector, it is that the most influential company verbalizes it to users and investors. As we mentioned in the intro, Goldman Sachs already considered this same question back in 2024 with its “Gen AI: Too Much Spend, Too Little Benefit?”. Economist and 2024 Nobel Prize winner Daron Acemoglu of MIT published a study called “The Simple Macroeconomics of AI” where he estimated that the real impact of AI on economic productivity in the next decade would be a paltry (especially if we take into account the speeches and investments) of just 0.5%. Context. That in this phase of expansion and training of AI It is not profitable it is no secretbut this is both an economic and a technical problem. With data in hand, there are reasons to worry. This recent Cast AI report It includes the analysis of 23,000 computing clusters, revealing that the average utilization of GPUs is only 5%. That is, 95% of the most expensive and advanced hardware on the market (those highly sought-after NVIDIA graphics cards) is operating well below its capacity. Part of the explanation lies in FOMO: explains Venture Beat that there are many companies acquiring AI chips not because they need them right now, but out of fear of running out of them in the future. The phenomenon is not new, we already saw it during the pandemic with semiconductors (and on a domestic scale, with toilet paper). There is someone who wins. In this story of companies investing to win the AI ​​race and other companies adopting it to modernize, there is someone who is winning from the first minute: NVIDIA bills the same whether its chips work at 5% or 100%. And he is breaking all his records. In 2024 record revenues of $60.9 billion (126% more than the previous year) thanks to this excessive demand for data centers. The large cloud providers, the holy trinity composed of Amazon, Microsoft and Google (the three occupy 70% of the market, according to Synergy data) bill the same regardless of whether the client is achieving results. According to Synergy Research Groupthe global cloud infrastructure market will exceed $330 billion in 2024. The underlying problem is incentives: those who have the most weight in the pace of investment in AI are precisely those who lose the least, hence no one is taking measures against waste. Yes, but. Making a catastrophic reading of Altman’s statements would be a mistake and in fact, the CEO of OpenAI himself expressed his confidence “the industry will solve it quickly.” After all, in that initial phase it is normal to incur losses and if not, tell Netflix with streaming. Current waste may simply be the cost of setting up infrastructure whose value will be realized later. Even the Goldman Sachs report acknowledges that bubbles take time to burst, meaning there is room for AI to deliver on its promises. Of course, a good part of the current artificial intelligence expenditure is linked to GPUs with specific architectures that could become obsolete in the face of more efficient models or specific architectures. In Xataka | The problem is not spending a lot of tokens, it’s that most of them are being wasted In Xataka | Anthropic has moved ahead of OpenAI in its race to go public. This is very bad news for Sam Altman Cover | TechCrunch (CC BY 2.0) and Giorgio Trovato

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