men

the forgotten story of the 11 deaf men of NASA

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In the late 1950s, NASA was very clear that it wanted to send astronauts into space and that that would be the beginning of a new era. Therefore, it was very important to thoroughly study how microgravity could affect the health of human beings. The first step would be to see how sick these travelers would get. And what better way to study it than with a group of people incapable of getting dizzy? Yes, although it may not seem like it, that makes sense. The Gallaudet 11. Gallaudet College, now known as Gallaudet University, was the first school in the world dedicated to the advanced education of the deaf and hard of hearing. That’s why it was there where NASA recruited 11 men between 25 and 48 years oldwhose deafness came mostly from damage to the vestibular system. 10 of them had lost hearing at an early age due to spinal meningitis that had deteriorated this system involved in balance. Having it affected they couldn’t get dizzy. Therefore, by studying their cases, NASA scientists hoped to better understand how seasickness occurs, in order to find the best methods to prevent it. A question of contradictions. motion sickness, also known as motion sicknessis a mechanism of the brain to react when faced with something it detects as contradictory. While the eyes detect that we are still, in a car, for example, the vestibular system, located in the ear, detects that we are moving. Faced with this contradiction, the brain tries to defend itself from danger, causing that feeling of dizziness that alerts us that something is supposedly going wrong. In the case of space travel, the vestibular system loses the reference influenced by gravity that it normally interprets as being in balance. Therefore, a similar effect is produced. But of course, if someone has damaged the vestibular system, it is impossible for them to perceive this type of dizziness. 11 men at the limit. The 11 volunteers recruited for this study They were divided into several groupswho underwent different experiments related to motion sickness and the absence of microgravity. For example, several of them spent 12 days in a slow-rotating room, which rotated 10 times per minute. Many others climbed into centrifugal capsules that they spin at high speed to simulate hypergravity. And possibly those who took it most to the extreme were those who went on microgravity simulation flights in which the aircraft flies upward quickly, stops and drops abruptly. One of these planes is known as the Vomit Comet for reasons that leave little room for the imagination. Unaffected by seasickness. Participants did not feel dizzy in any of these experiments. In fact, in the fourth exercise, in which they had to travel on a ferry in the rough seas of Nova Scotia, the researchers had to cancel the test due to the terrible dizziness they experienced. The 11 volunteers, on the other hand, were playing cards calmly. The benefits for the future. Thanks to these experiments, it was understood that space motion sickness is something temporary and manageable, linked to the vestibular system. Better training was also designed so that astronauts would be ready to avoid getting sick on their trips to space. For all this, although they never traveled to space, they were crucial for the well-being of all those astronauts who did. Their contributions were key in milestones as important as the one we just experienced with Artemis II. Image | POT In Xataka | We knew that Mars has gravity. Now we have just discovered the unexpected effect it has on the Earth’s climate

An app promises to free men from their “addiction” to porn. Behind it is something darker: the NoFap movement

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“Embrace this pause. Reflect before you relapse.” It doesn’t refer to alcohol or drugs, but to porn. With this claim, Quittr is presented, an app for people looking for overcome your porn addiction. Although you can register as a woman, the app is clearly focused on the male audience, So I pretended to be Manuel 28 and made an account. It didn’t take me long to realize that giving up porn is the excuse to sell something else. As soon as you start, the app asks you a questionnaire about your consumption habits, such as how often you watch porn and what negative symptoms you have noticed in your life (it caught my attention that one of them was “Feeling distant from God”, this already gives clues as to where we are headed). As soon as I finished the questionnaire they already had a personalized plan for Manuel and they also promised me that by June 7 he would have stopped porn. The bad part is that it was going to cost me 31.99 euros per year, 20.99 euros if I accepted the offer. Giving up porn has a price. I haven’t paid, but I have been researching the features that Quittr offers. The app tracks your progress, which is represented by “the tree of life,” and the longer you go without porn, the more it grows. It also offers motivational exercises, has a “panic button” in case you are about to relapse, and also allows you to chat with other members of the community. Based on science, but little Both on the website and in the app itself they say several times that Quittr’s method is based on science, but let’s see if this is the case. As soon as you finish the questionnaire, a message appears that claims that pornography is a drug and that “releases a chemical in the brain called dopamine.” According to the WHO definitiona drug is “a natural or synthetic compound that acts on the central nervous system and produces alterations in the processes that regulate thoughts, emotions, perception and behavior.” Watching porn can generate pleasure, but nothing is being introduced into the body, it is a natural response. In this sense, if pornography is a drug because it “releases dopamine”, we should also consider anything that gives us pleasure a drug, from food to keeping the house tidy. What it can do is cause compulsive consumption, which we could describe as addiction, which is very different. The ICD-11 clinical guide includes “compulsive sexual behavior disorder”, but of course, that sells less. In the app’s description they also state that their method is “based on extensive research into the science of addictions,” but there is no link to any study. The NoFap movement Browsing the web, I have found that there are several influencers who promote the app. Well, they are all Christian fitness content creators such as Jeremiah Jones either Caleb Hammett. When I entered the news blog section it was already clear to me what this was about. Some of the news from Quittr’s blog. He NoFap movement It was born as a kind of support group for people who want to stop masturbation, either because they perceive it as an addiction or also for religious reasons. This idea began to become popular a few years ago and its scientific basis is a study conducted in 2003 which linked increased testosterone levels to abstinence from masturbation. The study was refuted, but continues to be cited in these circles. In the beginning, NoFap followers They were looking to increase their testosterone and improve your health, but Nowadays it has become a lifestyle with a strong religious component. In Spain we have the reference of René ZZ, whose content gave a radical turn from tattoos to religion, personal improvement and the abandonment of masturbation. Applications like Quittr or Relay They are sold as the solution to porn addiction, which is something that many people will see as positive, but they do not highlight the religious part that advocates these rigid and moralistic abstinence models. In slate They tell the story of one of these men who entered NoFap looking to quit porn and ended up trapped in a cycle of relapse and extreme shame that ended up seriously affecting his mental health. Quittr’s other secret In addition to the moralistic component that Quittr hides, there is another fact that has recently become known and it is a security problem in its app. They count in 404media that several hackers notified the creators of the app of a serious vulnerability that exposed the data of its users, among whom there are minors. The failure was no small thing. This was a bug in Google Firebase configuration that allowed anyone to authenticate as an administrator and read the database. User data includes age, how often they watch porn, and even messages about their masturbation habits. The problem is no longer that vulnerability exists, it is that Those responsible for Quittr did nothing for at least six months. The first researcher who notified the company even spoke with the founder of the app Alex Slater, who responded that he would solve it in a matter of hours, but months later it was still not solved. Finally, they reacted when 404media insisted for the third time. Image | Franco Alva in Unsplash In Xataka | There is already a European country that requires you to be 18 years old to watch porn on the Internet. And there are already a thousand ways to skip it

If the question is why men don’t wear skirts, the answer lies in the 18th century: the Great Male Renunciation

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We have it so internalized, so assimilated, that perhaps you have never thought about it, but here goes one of those questions that sound like a truism: Why do men and women dress differently? Why is it that when we go to a wedding, a gala or an elegant dinner, it is taken for granted that they will wear a more or less sober suit and discreet colors while they will wear dresses and heels? Why are ‘men’s’ clothes usually more functional than women’s clothes? And already, why don’t we wear skirts, like was wondering recently David Uclés? As is usually the case when we talk about fashion (social trends in general), none of the above is the result of chance or simple whim. Why do you dress the way you dress? Things as they are: if you are a man (at least in the Spain of 2026) and you go to a meeting in a dress and heels, it is quite likely that your colleagues will be surprised to see you cross the door. However, the same clothing on a woman would be considered very normal. Because? That same question was recently asked by the writer David Uclés. And it’s not the first. Before him, others had already slipped it, such as the designer and photographer Ana Locking, who in another recent interview on the SER network encouraged men to be much more risky when selecting their wardrobe. “If you want to feel sexy today, dress sexy. The boys’ legs are super sexy, the boys’ necklines are super sexy. Open your neckline, wear a skirt, some shorts, some ankle boots with a little heel,” encouraged Locking after lamenting that, as they mature, men “clip their wings” when they confront the closet. “What they will say comes into play a little bit, feeling vulnerable.” Is it just social pressure? It depends how you look at it. Fashion in itself is a social construct, but the tendency that leads us men to opt for sober clothing and banish skirts, heels and clothing that may be considered ‘extravagant’ from our wardrobes is explained by another reason: the story. In fact, it is not a guideline that has always been applied. Come take a walk through the Costume Museum or El Prado to prove that when it comes to men’s fashion, sobriety has not always been synonymous with good style or elegance. For example, this canvas of King Philip V with his family painted in 1743 by Louis Michel van Loo or this other work from the end of the 17th century, also preserved in El Prado, and in which Jacob-Ferdinand Voet shows us Luis Francisco de la Cerda, IX Duke of Medinaceli. Is there anything that catches your attention about them? Wigs, high heels and brilli brilli? Exact. If you look at both works you will see that the men wear wigs, heels, stockings, loose jackets that fall almost like skirts, and an abundance of bright colors, the kind of clothing that at that time (late 17th century, first half of the 18th century) denoted status. If you think about it it makes sense. What they show us Jacob-Ferdinand Voet and Louis Michel van Loo They are characters dressed in colorful outfits, although they are not what we would say ‘functional’. But… Why should they be? If anyone could afford that kind of clothing it was aristocrats who didn’t have to work. Who doesn’t like heels? William Kremer explained it well in 2013 on the BBC when reviewing The history of high heels and why men stopped wearing them. Again, it may sound like a far-fetched question, but it actually makes a lot of sense and reveals even more about our history. For centuries heels were worn in the Middle East as part of horse riding clothing. And not only for aesthetic reasons. With them Persian soldiers could stand on the styles, stabilize themselves and adopt a good posture to use the bow. When at the end of the 16th century sha Abbas I of Persia He sent a diplomatic mission to Europe to gather support. The nobles noticed the Persian-style shoe. They liked it so much that over time they began to wear high heels that highlighted their size… and their social rank. And all that with heels? That’s how it is. “One of the best ways to convey status is through the impractical,” commented in 2013 Elizabeth Semmelhack, of the Bata Footwear MuseumToronto. Perhaps heels were not very advisable for walking through the countryside and the paved and potholed streets of the 17th century cities, but did the same nobles who posed for chamber painters dressed in clothes as luxurious as they were cumbersome have to do so? “They don’t work in the fields nor do they have to walk a lot.” Why did they stop being used? Times have changed. And the way of thinking. When they review the history of fashion (especially men’s fashion) historians usually stop at the Enlightenment, between the mid-17th century and the beginning of the 19th century, a time in which intellectuals opted for a way of thinking in which what was rational and useful was prioritized. Also education about privileges. Status is no longer an inherited gift, but the result of training and work. As far as fashion is concerned, this translated into a new sensitivity that favored the use of garments comfortable and functional. In England, for example, even landowners ended up embracing a more practical style, better suited to managing their properties. At least that’s how it was among men. The rational aspect stood out among them; The emotional nature was highlighted in them. Did only the Enlightenment influence? No. The Enlightenment mentality played a crucial role, but historians usually point out an episode that (although inspired by the Enlightenment) is much more specific, both geographically and temporally: the french revolution. Against this backdrop, the way one dressed became more than a simple aesthetic choice or a mark of status. … Read more

It’s science and that’s why they sleep worse than men

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When sharing a bed with another person, there is a chance that there will be an eternal nighttime thermal war, with one person roasting in the heat and pulling the duvet down, while the other freezes and seeks refuge under the covers. For years, this has been treated as a simple couple anecdotebut the truth is that it has a physiological reason behind it. And something that has been seen is that women, statistically, sleep worse than men, with the thermostat being the culprit. Sleeping differently. To understand this phenomenon, we must first know how our body works when it prepares to rest. In this case, in order for us to fall asleep and enter the deeper phases, our core temperature must drop. However, during the REM phasethe body needs this temperature to rise slightly again. This is where the biological conflict comes in, as is exposed in the podcast Sleep is a Skillwhere a specialist explains how women generally tend to have less muscle mass and a lower basal metabolism than men. This translates into a skin temperature between 3 and 4 degrees colder, meaning that, with colder extremities, women prefer warmer environments to be able to reach that optimal temperature that induces sleep. Something that opens up many anecdotes, like how in a couple women need a sheet to sleep in in the summer. Their differences. In general terms (which is not universal), while men need the room and bed to be cold at the beginning of the night to lower their core temperature quickly, Women require a warmer environment to compensate for colder skin. and not suffer alterations in your sleep architecture. What science says. In the literature, there are multiple studies that confirm these gender differences in thermoregulation. One of these was published in 2023, where it was shown that women recorded higher skin temperatures than men during the sleep phase where there is higher quality. That is, it requires a warmer microenvironment to have a much more adequate sleep. Furthermore, several studies published in Journal of Sleep Research reveal that women reach nocturnal body temperature minimums earlier than men. But also, its temperature drops are less pronounced, which directly affects the quality of continuous sleep. The use of technology. Given this problem, there are companies that have set to work to do something that would a priori solve this problem for couples: use smart mattress covers to regulate the temperature on each side of the bed so that women sleep better. It is true that the data they rely on internally to sell their mattresses still has to be validated. Even so, the pre-existing scientific evidence is robust. Women are not “chilly” on a whim, but their biology requires a different thermal environment to be able to rest properly. Perhaps the definitive solution to disputes over the duvet is not by giving in, but by dividing air conditioning technology in the bed. Images | Vitaly Gariev In Xataka | We thought insomnia was just not being able to sleep. Now we know that there are five different disorders

More and more men pee sitting down instead of standing up. Science knows it’s a good idea

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Society’s habits are constantly changing and this covers various areas, including the most intimate ones. An example of this is the growing habit among men of urinating sitting down instead of standing up. Beyond a simple fad, studies indicate that it can be a good habit for our urinary tract and prostate health. The study. A meta-analysis (a study based on studies) carried out a few years ago found that there were advantages for people with the so-called “low urinary symptoms” (LUTS), sitting could increase urinary flow, reduce the time required to complete the operation and minimize the volume of post-emptying residue of our bladder. In healthy people the difference in the parameters was not significant. Other more recent work analyzed the same parameters to obtain similar results, in which “urodynamics” was better for those who suffered from urinary tract problems such as benign prostatic hyperplasiabut did not find significant differences in the “healthy” group. Don’t forget hygiene. Does that mean that we have to wait until our prostate begins to suffer before changing the habit? Not necessarily. hygiene It is another reason given by defenders of urinary rest. When urinating standing up, the collision between the stream and the water causes (no matter how good our aim is and it is not always) significant splashes. These splashes may not be noticeable due to the small size of the droplets, but they can reach places that we would prefer to keep away from urine, such as toothbrushes. Everything else. And urine is not actually the problem, since it is a relatively aseptic and harmless in sanitary terms. It is the possibility that it “pushes” with it bacteria and viruses related to gastric problems, including the dreaded Escherichia coli. Upward trend. The tendency to sit is increasing and For some it is the effect of the Pandemic. In Japan, for example, successive surveys concluded that the number of men who urinated sitting down rose from 51% in 2015 to 58% at the beginning of 2020 and then shot up to 70% in the second half of that same year. In Europe, this custom is closely associated with Germany, where it is common to find posters in the toilets asking that they be used from the seat. Curious ramifications. But science is not everything, and the issue has become a topic of debate in some places. A few months ago, for example, a German court had to intervene on behalf of a tenant when his tenant requested compensation for damage to the bathroom of the rented home. Nothing less than €3,000 deposit. The dispute had been going on for a long time and the reason was that the owner of the house claimed that, by urinating standing up, the tenant had damaged the marble floor of the bathroom by urinating standing up instead of sitting down. Angry. Of course there are more detractors of this change in habits. In German, the term Sitzpinkleris often used derisively by those who find sitting down to urinate offensive and emasculating. For now the division is not as deep as that of taking off shoes (or not) at home. But the debate promises. In Xataka | We have always thought that “doing more sports” automatically equates to being fitter. It’s more complicated than that In Xataka | Waking up at 3 in the morning is totally normal: sleeping straight through is a modern invention, not an evolution Image | Maximilian Bungart

‘Heat’ has become a cult film for many men. Now they get what they have been waiting for for years.

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Michael Mann has officially announced ‘Heat 2’, the sequel/prequel to the 1995 film that, over the years, has become much more than a police thriller: it is a cultural code, a cult film that defines a certain masculine sensibility very attached to its time. Its arrival just now and with this cast is not exactly a coincidence. A cult process. ‘Heat’ it was notat its premiere, the film loved by everyone that it is today. When it hit theaters in 1995, it received good reviews but also had a modest commercial reception: it grossed $67 million at the domestic box office against a budget of $60 million. It was in international markets (where Michael Mann was better regarded) where the film doubled those figures. From there, ‘Heat’ grew, gaining fame as one of the great American thrillers of recent decades, at a time when, on the verge of the bombing of ‘Matrix‘, the pyrotechnic spectacle was going to become a priority in action cinema. The origin. Everything that surrounds the film has ended up acquiring a special aura. For example, its origin. Mann wrote the original screenplay in 1979, based on Chicago detective Chuck Adamson’s real-life manhunt for professional thief Neil McCauley. The two men met face to face in a parking lot and instead of shooting each other they went to have a coffee. McCauley died in a shootout with police in 1964. Mann it took fifteen years in being able to bring it to the big screen with the budget and cast that he considered appropriate. The Pacino-De Niro clash. The most iconic scene of the film has done a lot to give it a special packaging. The coffee scene between the two actors was the first in history in which both actors shared a shot, since in ‘The Godfather II’ their characters existed in different timelines and never interacted. Mann built the entire narrative of ‘Heat’ as an inevitable path toward that moment, and when it arrives, the encounter is neither a fight nor a chase: it’s two men talking about mundane topics. And it has remained an idealized model of male conversation in which things are not said directly but are understood. That masculinity (contained, professional, stoic) is one of the keys to the cult that ‘Heat’ has earned. As it has been saidwhat Mann explores is not crime but its cost: the loneliness of men who don’t know how to live outside of their work, who come to love too late or with too much baggage. That tension between the professional world and personal life resonates with a certain generation of men, and explains the devoted following he has gained over the years. From that point of view, that films like Christopher Nolan’s trilogy of Batman films, Mann’s own ‘Collateral’ or Ben Affleck’s ‘The Town’ owe so much to ‘Heat’ and generate follow-ups with comparable audiences explains everything. Work for men. Mann described his own film as a “symphonic drama.” That operatic tone (a “nothing” of passion: men who do not tell what they feel, who channel their entire emotional life into work, who arrive late or do not arrive at love) is combined with the definition that Mark Kermode made Man’s cinema: hypermasculinity that tends towards implosion, destroying the social relations around it not out of malice, but out of inability. The theme of the film is male alienation, and it is what has resonated with so many men. McCauley’s code (don’t tie yourself to anything you can’t get away from in thirty seconds) is self-help in reverse, and also a fantasy of radical autonomy that a certain sector of men has been claiming for years. He totem paper of ‘Heat’ makes all the sense in the world: these men in one piece, which Mann describes without judging, had not yet been deactivated by the irony of post-heroes like The Rock or the fragile Marvel characters, full of flaws and nuances. Only with films are experiments like the podcast possible’One Heat Minute’which dissects the film minute by minute. And now, ‘Heat 2’. The sequel carries a gestation process which promises to be comparable to its predecessor. It has taken more than three years to find financing, it has changed studios in the midst of budget negotiations and it has seen how the director reduced the budget from an initial $200 million to $150 million that United Artists (a division of Amazon) has approved. The starting point is a novel that Mann published in 2022 with Meg Gardiner. It works as a prequel and sequel, with a non-linear structure that jumps between 1988, 1995 (immediately after the first film) and the year 2000. Although McCauley has been dead since 1995, the novel goes back to his formative years and moves forward with the survivor played by Val Kilmer. Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale have been confirmed in the cast, and this is also a declaration of intentions: there are few actors as loved and respected by the male audience as them (among other things, for the devotion that manosphere towards films as ridiculously misinterpreted as ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ and ‘American Psycho’). Filming will begin in August of this year and the premiere is scheduled for 2027. Great expectations. Since 2004’s ‘Collateral,’ Mann has had a few punctures at the box office: ‘Blackhat’ cost 70 million dollars and grossed 19.6, and ‘Ferrari’ cost 95 and barely made it to 16. It is an opportunity to make amends and also to meet his audience: the one at the center of a cultural debate on masculinity that has charged the original film with a meaning that it did not have in 1995. All this, if we season it with the inevitable nineties nostalgia, there we have it: one of the possible next box office phenomena. In Xataka | On TikTok there are men shaving their eyelashes to look more masculine. Science has bad news for them

For years we blamed testosterone for men living shorter lives. Now we know that the culprit is a chromosome

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For decades, biology has observed an incontestable demographic fact: women live longer than men. It has often been blamed lifestyleto testosterone or to the greater male propensity for risky activities. However, science has found a much more subtle and genetic culprit that we carry in all our cells and that literally we start to lose as we get older. A genetics class. In a very general way, we must remember that all our genetic information is collected in 46 chromosomes which are found within the nuclei of our cells in pairs. But there is a part of all these chromosomes that define us as men or women: The presence of two X chromosomes defines women and the presence of one X chromosome with one Y defines men. Although there is great genetic complexity behind something as redundant as a pair of chromosomes, what interests us in this case is that science has seen a effect called mLOYwhich is literally the loss of Y chromosome mosaic in men. And different scientific articles suggest that it is not a simple side effect of getting older, but rather it is a “silent killer” that explains much of the longevity gap between the sexes. The runaway chromosome. For a long time, the Y chromosome was considered the “little brother” of the genome. Small, with few genes and almost exclusively responsible for determining the male sex with no other known functions, almost all of which fall on the X chromosome of considerable size. But the truth is that we were wrong, and the Y chromosome has great importance in the adult life of men. The mLOY phenomenon. This occurs when the cells that are in charge of manufacturing the blood elementslike erythrocytes, platelets, or lymphocytes, suffer errors when dividing and lose the Y chromosome. Something that generates a “mosaic” in our body, that is, some white blood cells have the Y chromosome while others do not. But what is disturbing is the frequency with which it occurs, since, according to the data reviewed, this is something that has been detected in 40% of men at age 60 and in 70% of men at age 90. There is damage. Until recently, it was believed that losing this chromosome was benign and normal, a simple “genetic gray hair.” But the evidence accumulated between 2022 and 2025, including massive UK Biobank studies and the recent German studio LURIChas set off alarm bells: losing the Y chromosome is not harmless and has important side effects. The heart. One of these side effects is precisely heart failure, which is a very prevalent disease in the elderly. Here science has been able to see that, by eliminating the Y chromosome in mice, the animals rapidly developed cardiac fibrosis. That is, their hearts were filled with scar tissue, becoming rigid and, therefore, having great difficulty pumping blood. But it is not the only disease that occurs, since in the United Kingdom Biobank, men with mLOY in more than 40% of their white blood cells had a 31% higher risk of dying from cardiovascular causes. And even the LURIC study published last year, carried out on 1,700 men, found that the mLOY effect increased the risk of fatal heart attack by almost 50%. More diseases. Beyond the heart, the impact of losing the Y chromosome also affects our body’s defense system to be able to combat different threats. Among them we have cancer, since the immune system needs the Y chromosome to effectively monitor the tumor cells that arise. Its loss is associated with a worse prognosis in bladder cancer and other solid tumors, since it is as if our body’s security guards had gone partially blind. In addition to cancer, the frequency of mLOY has also been seen to be up to 10 times higher in patients who have Alzheimer’swith studies showing an almost 3 times higher risk of developing the disease. The COVID. During the pandemic we saw that older men died much more than women without fully understanding why. We now know that the loss of the Y chromosome increases 54% risk of fatality for being infected with COVID in the elderly, finally offering a biological explanation for this bias. Is there a solution? It may seem depressing to know that a part of our DNA decides to abandon us and cause us so many problems, but in reality, it is a hopeful finding. And it is hopeful, since, seeing that the loss of the Y chromosome is a direct cause of a disease, therapeutic doors open. In experiments with mice, it has been seen that treatment with an antifibrotic drug was able to reverse the cardiac damage caused by the loss of the chromosome. This means that the mLOY effect can be used as a marker in a blood test, as happens with cholesterol, to predict a patient’s cardiac risk and to be able to give preventive treatments to delay it and improve the patient’s quality of life. Images | nrd Miroslaw Miras In Xataka | The X chromosome has new clues about aging: why women tend to live longer than men

Gen Z men are embracing “old money” dressing

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Lately, the Instagram algorithm registration has changed. Where once infinite-soled sneakers and sweatshirts with logos that screamed from a mile away dominated, now there are movie videos, martinis served in cut-crystal glasses, and twenty-year-old boys who look like they’ve stepped out of a film set in the late 1950s. They’ve left behind the uniform of hypebeast to dress like Paul Newman on a yacht on the Riviera or like a young JFK Jr. on Martha’s Vineyard. It’s not just a wardrobe choice, it’s a symptom. As CNN explainswe are facing an “intentional, defined by moderation” change, where young men align their clothing with the way they want to be perceived today: as men with purpose and control. But behind this facade of neatness, lies a much more complex narrative about fear of the future and a worrying ideological drift that has been found in the Barbour jacket. his definitive banner. The change is palpable in the data. According to Lyst trends reportglobal demand for quarter-zip sweaters (quarter-zips) increased 31% by the end of 2025. Similarly, searches for the iconic loafers Le Loafer of Saint Laurent rose 66%. But if we look further, the data from the technology consultancy Heuritech They are revealing of this conservative turn: searches for boots with an equestrian aesthetic have increased by 39% and gingham prints, typical of the 1950s, have grown by 33%. The language of success is no longer streetwear disruptive; now it is “quiet luxury”. This trend has jumped from the catwalks to lifestyle. According to Business InsiderGeneration Z is “storming” golf courses, a sport that has historically been the playground of the mature elite. Interest has risen 30% since 2016, and in 2023 more than 3.4 million young people played for the first time. It is no longer just about clothes, but about inhabiting the spaces of exclusivity to, As some experts point outnot to be left out of the “business conversations” that occur in the greens. A piece that marks the change On this aesthetic chessboard, the king piece is the Barbour jacket. It was born in 1894 to protect fishermen and sailors, but now it is part of a different identity sign. Margaret Barbour understood in the 80s that the future of the brand involved capitalizing on its connection with the old money, achieving that Queen Elizabeth II and the then Prince Charles made it the symbol of the British rural aristocracy. In Spain, this return has taken a specific form: it has become the aesthetic fever of the right-wing kids. What was once a functional garment for the countryside is today a status symbol in the city that visually separates those who long for a traditional order from those who transitory fashions follow. The Barbour, with its paraffin smell and tartan lining, functions as armor that projects stability and class membership, even if the wearer does not own an acre of land. This turn does not occur in a vacuum. It coincides with what academics like Vivek Chibber define as the sunset of “wokism”. After years in which brands focused on social activism (from Black Lives Matter to Bud Light’s trans campaigns), the pendulum has swung strongly Towards the conservative side. The corporations they are dismantling their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs to avoid boycotts and align with an electorate that rejects “political correctness.” As Nesrine Malik analyzes in your column for Guardianthe fall of woke up is largely due to their “capture by elites.” For Malik, the patrician class hijacked identity politics, turning social justice into an exercise in symbolic gestures and elitist language (such as the use of Latinx or pronouns in bios) that ended up alienating the working class. This “diluted and flaccid version” of social justice, created in the image and likeness of the privileged, has provoked massive rejection. In this scenario, youth are no longer looking for “allies”, but rather authority figures and brands that, like Barbour, represent a tangible and unambiguous moral heritage. Barbour’s collaboration with Chloé is the death certificate of the progressive avant-garde: the aesthetics of privilege are now the only refuge value. A hierarchy of exclusion What we previously knew simply as style preppyfor Generation Z it is now, as defined by GQ“a character you can play.” Inspired by figures like Dickie Greenleaf in The talent of Mr. Ripleyyoung people look for clothes that “reveal that you have, at least, a yacht parked in the port.” However, this interpretation has an ideological “B side”. In his academic research The Fascist Potential of the ‘Old Money’ Trendresearcher Veronica Bezold warns that aesthetics It’s not just innocent nostalgia.. Bezold points out that the content old money On social media, he often portrays “new money”—technological or minority-linked fortunes—as something “vulgar.” By glorifying the “purity” of lineage and inherited wealth, Bezold argues that the trend aestheticizes neoliberalism and connects with radical right narratives of exclusion. A social hierarchy is thus validated where the value of a person depends on their origin and not their effort, feeding a historical amnesia about a past that was only “golden” for a few. The question underlying all of this is: why does a generation that lives in economic inequality dress like the class that ruined its future? The answer is sociological. A report in Curation Edit describe this phenomenon as “survival cosplay”. in a market inaccessible real estate and a bowling economy (gig economy), dressing like an heir is a way of claiming a stability they do not possess. “If you can’t buy a house, at least you can buy cream-colored pants that say you could,” they point out. But there is a deeper power component. As Martina Porta explains in his academic thesis The habitus of politicsthe wardrobe is an institutional communication tool that builds an image of authority. By adopting this style, the young Gen Z seeks to integrate into the habitus of the ruling classes to appear “competent” and “employable” in an increasingly rigid system. It’s a mimicry strategy: if you can’t beat … Read more

Women consistently sleep worse than men. And science has finally discovered why it is

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For years we have been able to have a perception in many homes: the women tend to sleep worse, wake up more and feel more tired than men. This is something that for a long time has been dismissed as a subjective perception, but Science has now wanted to close the debate, pointing out that it is not only a perception, but that there is a gender gap documented. The data. The Global Sleep Survey 2025carried out on a massive sample of more than 30,000 people in 13 countries, has produced a key figure: 38% of women have problems falling asleep more than three times a week, compared to 29% of men. Something that in Spain is not a very different situation, since according to the cross-sectional studies recently published in Naturewomen have much higher scores on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), indicating worse subjective quality. In this way, while 44.6% of Spanish women report poor sleep quality, in men the figure drops to 30.1%. A paradox. Tests with motion sensors suggest that women sometimes have higher “sleep efficiency” on paper, but it is perceived as greater exhaustion. The person responsible for this is the sleep fragmentationwhich is related to constant waking up or even in mothers due to having to get up to care for a baby, for example. The hormonal factor. It is undoubtedly one of the big differences that exist between men and women, since estrogen and progesterone levels fluctuate drastically during the menstrual cycle, pregnancy or menopause. In the specific case of menopause it can be seen as a drop in the level of estrogen, in addition to produce alterations in bone formationalso increases the immediate degradation of rest. The data indicates that 51% of the Menopausal women suffer from sleep disordersshown a big difference: 44% of women in this stage report serious problems compared to 33% of non-menopausal women. If we go to pregnancywe see something similar with physical (from discomfort) and hormonal disruptions that create a pattern of alertness that often doesn’t fully recover until years after childbirth. The mental load. Beyond the hormonal load, the social factor is, perhaps, the most difficult to correct. One of the most important is the role that women have in many cases regarding the care of other people. According to the data compiled by the University of Michigan and diverse reviews on BMJ Openemployed women wake up twice as often as their partners to care for children or dependent relatives, even when they are the main breadwinners of the home. This “caretaker” role keeps the brain in an “alert” situation, making it attentive to whether a baby cries at night or a dependent family member has any need. This causes 76% of caregivers to report poor sleep quality.since the brain cannot unconsciously disconnect to monitor the well-being of the environment. Its consequences. Poor sleep not only means being tired the next day, but also has more serious clinical consequences. One of the most important is the increase in the probability of having a metabolic diseasesuch as diabetes. In addition, it increases accelerated cognitive deterioration and causes an increase in anxiety and depression disorders. And what is interesting in this case is that the female brain in sleep deprivation is more vulnerable to emotional dysregulation. The solution. The scientific community, from the Sleep Research Institute (IIS) to publications in Frontiers in Psychiatryagrees that it is not enough to increase “sleep hygiene” by leaving your cell phone before going to sleep, for example. It mainly aims at social therapy, making changes in the structure of the home that avoid fragmentation of sleep by getting up to take care of someone, for example. But logically, if you are in a perimenopause situation, you should also choose to go to the doctor to receive pharmacological treatment whenever there is significant hormonal deregulation. Images | Slaapwijsheid.nl In Xataka | If you fall asleep in less than five minutes, you don’t have a “superpower”: it’s a warning signal from your brain

How to add the Three Wise Men to any photo of your street using artificial intelligence

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Let’s tell you how to add the Three Wise Men to your photographsso that you can create images full of illusion. The idea is that if you have a photo of your street or a place you usually walk through, you can add these characters to it without altering anything else. We are going to tell you two ways to do this, both with artificial intelligence. First we will go to a website designed exclusively for this, which is the easiest alternative to use. And then we will tell you how to use the most popular artificial intelligence chatbots, such as ChatGPT either Gemini. Use a third party page If you want to do things as easily as possiblethere are pages like fotoalosreyesmagos.comcreated especially to add the Three Wise Men to your photos, and which allows you to see the photos shared by other users from all over Spain. The website offers consistency in designs, although the results are a little less refined. To use it, go to fotoalosreyesmagos.com and click on Upload your photo. Now you will go to a screen where you have to upload the photo you want to use to insert the Three Wise Men. Click on the box or drag the photo to it if you are on the computer. Remember that they must be photos of a street or landscape so that the AI ​​can insert the characters into it. Now you’ll have to choose how to customize your resulting photo. To do this, you just have to decide if you want to include the camels or only to the Kings. Additionally, you have to choose if you want the photo to be public indicating your location or if you want to keep it private and not publish it in the gallery. Now, after deciding whether or not to accept or not give the website a donation of one euro, the photo will be generated. When the photo is generated you can download or share itin addition to publishing it if you want in the public gallery. Add the Three Wise Men with ChatGPT or Gemini The other option is use ChatGPT or Geminiin both cases you will be able to use the same prompt, although today ChatGPT Images offers better results. But you can try both options and stick with the one that suits you best. What you have to do in both options is upload a photograph of your neighborhood, and add the following prompt: I want you to add the three Wise Men in this photo. They should be walking down the street, and you should make them realistic, make them look like real people. Look at the proportions so that they have a realistic size within the photograph, that they have the size of a real person. Don’t touch anything else in the photo, just add to the characters. That’s it, with this the AI ​​will generate a fairly realistic image of these characters. The advantage of this option is that you can add and specify things at the prompt you use, adding objects, specifying sizes, and similar. In Xataka Basics | How to create a character in ChatGPT and Gemini to use it in all the images you make with artificial intelligence

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