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The greatest Japanese railway dream is a train that would connect Madrid and Barcelona in 75 minutes at 600 km/h. It’s also your biggest nightmare

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Year 2027, Japan prepares for the first trip of its new Maglev. The train that works by magnetic levitation runs at a speed of 505 km/h and has exceeded 600 km/h in its testing phase. It will barely take 40 minutes to travel between Tokyo and Nagoya, cities that are currently separated by more than an hour and a half of travel. If we move it to Spanish soil, the new Maglev that is about to leave Tokyo station would link Madrid and Barcelona in 75 minutes. Today, the fastest train takes 182 minutes and work is being done to reduce travel time to less than two hours. But all this is a dream. A nightmare, more like. And it is that Japan has been dreaming for years with once again taking the initiative in high-speed rail worldwide. Despite being the pioneers in offering trips on what are known as “bullet trains” and demonstrating to the world in 1964 that they were decades ahead of any competitor, China has surpassed them. A project aims to return them to the top. It is the Chuo Shinkansen line operated by a Maglev. But that project is taking hold and, at the moment, things are not looking too good. A decade of delay and shovelfuls of money When in 2015 the Maglev exceeded 600 km/h We thought that today we would travel by train much faster than we do. Japan then presented a seven-car prototype known as the L0 Series. It was one of the first steps to connect Tokyo and Nagoya in just 40 minutes. He calendar projected the dream described above. In 2027, Japan would have a line operated by trains capable of reaching 505 km/h. It would be a punch on the table on a board, that of high speed, which China dominates right now. The neighboring country and great rival has managed to establish itself as the place where the trains travel the fastest, move more people and They have more kilometers of roads available. But all these plans have been delayed and the new date points to 2036. They explain in the specialized media Japanism that the Chuo Shinkansen was designed as a fast route to link the large cities located on the Pacific coast. Currently, Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka are already linked by the Tokaido Shinkansen, but this new line would serve to decongest roads that circulate at their limits and, at the same time, offer the fastest route possible. So much so that Tokyo and Osaka, today separated by a trip of at least 202 minutes, would become connected in just 75 minutes. That is, an hour and a quarter. This alternative obviously requires the construction of an entire railway infrastructure that is encountering a multitude of problems. One of the big secrets why trains in Japan are so fast and punctual is that they use different infrastructure for their high-speed trains and conventional ones. With the Chuo Shinkansen it would be even more necessary since the train works by magnetic levitation. The Maglev is an old Japanese railway dream that has its roots in the 70s when research began on whether a train could operate using magnetic levitation. The idea is that the train “floats” on the tracks traveling at a very high speed, held by powerful magnets. This way friction against the tracks is eliminated and the ride should be smoother and quieter. Obviously, this prevents the current roads from being reused. To carry out this new infrastructure, Japan has proposed launching its trains underground for about 250 kilometers. Tokyo and Nagoya are separated by 286 kilometers and the project involves burying 90% of the route. And to reduce travel times, the train would go underground in the interior of the country, instead of continuing near the coast like the current Tokaido Shinkansen. High-speed trains have a problem: tunnels. The speed of trains in Japan is limited by the numerous holes that the country has had to make in its mountains to carry out its high-speed lines. With each entry into a tunnel there is a change in pressure that generates discomfort for passengers and enormous noise outside, as well as challenges for the movement of the train itself. The idea with Maglev is to eliminate these entrances and exits with a train that almost always runs underground. In this way, it can also work in vacuum conditions, which reduces the energy needed to reach speeds of more than 500 km/h. This idea has faced countless problems, they explain in Japanism. The project began to take shape in 2011 but has experienced constant delays and setbacks. First there was an important political struggle to decide what the final itinerary of the line was and it was not until 2015 when the ground began to be excavated. The problem is that the new tracks circulate, in some sections, next to current high-speed tracks. They explain in the middle that in the Shinagawa area the conventional train tracks are being replaced by magnetic levitation sections but that they can only advance 12 meters a day because there are only four hours of work left free, which is the interval between the last train of the day and the first of the next day. All this, added to the fights with the land owners and the technical difficulties, has increased the cost of the project. It was estimated that the line between Tokyo and Osaka would cost 9 billion Japanese yen, of which 5.52 billion yen would have to be spent between Tokyo and Nagoya. However, cost overruns have skyrocketed the final figure and in 2025 JR Central, in charge of the project, already estimated the cost of this last section in 11 trillion yen. All these cost overruns and technical problems (barely 2% of traffic will move on land, 86% of the time will travel underground and the rest on viaducts and bridges) have caused interruptions in construction and, as we have seen, an increase … Read more

“45 minutes of family sports support the health of parents and children”

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Yes take out time to exercise It is complicated in the world we live in, doing it with children is sometimes practically an impossible mission. On the other hand, children themselves sometimes do not reach the recommended physical activity times, either due to an excess of non-active extracurricular activities, not having access to outdoor places to play or due to abuse of certain sedentary leisure activities, such as games with video consoles. Given that parents and children, each in their own way, have the same problems, two scientists from Nottingham Trent University, Scarlett Fountain and Karah Dring, had an idea: what if they designed a plan so that families could play sports together? In their case, they opted for rugby games in pairs, but other options could be useful. They found that, as they imagined, practicing exercise as a family provides benefits for both physical and mental health. And the best thing is that it is not necessary to completely change the daily routines of children and adults, since in just 45 minutes you can see the results. Surveys that say it all. The authors of this research They began their study with a survey in which 25 families participated. Both adults and children had to answer a series of questions about their physical activity routines and the reasons why they consider that, if true, they do not practice enough sport. Adults agreed to mention problems such as the high price of organized activities or the lack of free time. There were also some who complained about not having local sports and leisure facilities nearby. The children, for their part, reported that seeing their parents staying active encourages them to exercise more. In fact, it is something that also happened the other way around. Both parents and children inspire each other to stay active. The solution seemed clear. 45 minutes of rugby. After analyzing the results of the surveys, Fountain and Dring They decided to design a family physical activity program. It would be free, accessible and quick, to solve all the problems they observed in the responses of the participating parents, although not all of them signed up. Only 16 families participated in the program. They chose rugby as a couple, as it is fun, adaptable and, unlike rugby typical team rugbyno contact. The 45-minute sessions included warm-ups, skills practice and small games. Before and after, both parents and children had to solve a series of cognitive tests on a computer. In addition, blood samples were taken from the adults. These results were compared with another 45-minute rest session, which would serve as a control. Good for physical and mental health. Both children and adults improved cognitive test scores after exercising as a family. For example, children performed better on a working memory task right after exercise. For their part, parents showed improvements in information processing. These improvements were maintained for at least 45 minutes. Regarding physical health, it was seen that, after lunch, adults had the same blood glucose levels as after rest, but less insulin. This means that they needed less amount of the hormone to regulate the levels of sugar consumed. His cells responded very well to insulin, they showed no resistance. Family exercise is beneficial for physical and mental health From school to work. As the authors of the study explained in an article for The Conversationa third of adults do not reach the recommended levels of physical activity. They don’t clarify where, but it is possibly in the United Kingdom. Even so, it is something that can be totally extrapolated to other parts of the world. On the other hand, only 4 out of 5 children between 11 and 17 years old do 60 minutes of exercise a day. Less than an hour of physical activity each day is very little for a child. The consequences for physical health are very clear, but sometimes we do not take into account how this influences cognitive performance at work, school, or simply in everyday life. For this reason, they believe that much more emphasis should be placed on providing families with opportunities to exercise together. If it is not possible separately, the solution, clearly, is to exercise as a team. Images | Magnificent In Xataka | In the fever to train strength, the gym has faced competition: more and more people train on the street

“If a person over 70 years of age walks 20–30 minutes five days a week, benefits are already obtained”

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In 1965, a Japanese company launched a pedometer on the market called Manpo-Kei. That is, a “10,000 step meter.” That is the first time in history that the idea of ​​10,000 steps appears and, for years, many have wondered where that figure came from. The answer is, according to Japanese researchersfrom nowhere: they chose that number because in Japanese (万) is similar to a man who walks. That is, the most repeated advice about walking was born in a marketing meeting and not in a laboratory. Therefore, it is essentially a lie. Especially if you are over 70 years old. 70 years? What happens to those over 70 years of age? Not only has it dismantled the myth of 10,000 steps, it has shown that older people are capable of “capturing” the benefits with many fewer steps (around 6,000). Hence some coaches, as Rafael Hidalgoensure that it is enough to walk half an hour five days a week to obtain the cardiovascular, mobility and well-being bonus. and it’s true: at these ages there is a non-linear dose-response. Walking more does not bring more benefits. It is also true that, after 70, walking is not enough. The trend we fight against. Sedentary lifestyle in Spain is greater the older the person is. If we look the National and European Health Surveys (1987-2020) The highest prevalence of this sedentary lifestyle occurs among those over 65 years of age. In fact, if we analyze the data in detail we see that, even in those people who do not have limiting pathologies, there are high rates of sedentary lifestyle and overweight that lead to a poor perception of health. The bottom line is that it is something relatively easy to solve. Beyond accumulating steps. After 70, the goal cannot be adding steps. Or not only that. Any training or physical activity plan must optimize one thing: remain functional. That’s why, The WHO asks those over 65 years of age several linked activities: balance exercises, strength exercises at moderate intensity three times a week and 150 minutes a week of aerobic activity. Combine these types of exercises reduces the risk of falls by up to 23% (which are one of the main problems as we age). Additionally, as far as we know, it has positive impacts on mobility, mood, and sleep quality. Image | Age Cymru In Xataka | The trap of walking for the sake of walking: “Japanese walks” are much more effective than your daily hour-long walk

Science confirms how many minutes of weight training per week reduce the risk of mortality

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For decades, when we thought about doing physical exercise, our minds almost automatically went to get older. cardiovascular activity. Running, swimming or cycling have been star recommendations to keep the heart healthy and extend life expectancy. Or at least live with a better quality of life. However, little by little we are normalizing the need to prioritize strength exercises at any age. How long. This is one of the big questions that anyone who needs to quantify the amount of exercise they do per day can ask themselves. There are clear recommendations, such as walk one hour a day at a brisk pacebut in strength we were quite orphaned. Now a new and monumental analysis has come to put exact figures on what until now were general recommendations, establishing a precise time window to maximize our years of life. What has been seen. The finding comes from a large observational study which has had 147,374 participants and exhaustive follow-up that has extended up to 30 years. Its good results have been published in the magazine British Journal of Sports Medicine. And when it comes to lifting weights or doing resistance exercises, intuition could dictate that “the more, the better”, but human physiology provides more limited metrics. The study data found that spending between 90 and 119 minutes weekly in resistance training routines was directly associated with lower overall mortality. In other words, spending between an hour and a half and two hours a week working our muscles is linked to a lower risk of dying from any cause. We have to be adjusted. What is truly revealing about this study lies in what happens when those 120 minutes are exceeded of weekly exercise. Anyone might think that the longer the time, the less likely you are to develop a major disease, but the reality is that above this time the benefits seem to stagnate. This shows that maximum efficiency is achieved in that limited period of time, demystifying the need to spend endless days in the weight room to obtain many more protective advantages at the metabolic level that allow us to extend our life a little more or make it of a higher quality. You have to combine it. Although strength training shines in this study, abandoning cardiovascular exercises would be a profound mistake. Here the research group itself pointed out that combining strength exercises with aerobic activity offered the best possible results, since this duality confirms that a hybrid approach dramatically maximizes long-term survival benefits. It’s backed up. In the past there were reviews that explored the relationship between training and mortality, this being one more that gives it much more strength so that it ultimately continues to be recommended for consultation to anyone, regardless of age. Because exercise here does not understand age, and strength exercise can be for the youngest, but also for the elderly who need to preserve their muscle to have a better quality of life in their last years of life. Images | Anastase Maragos In Xataka | In the fever to train strength, the gym has faced competition: more and more people train on the street

“If you’re still awake twenty minutes after going to bed, get up.”

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Going to bed and starting to toss and turn while watching all the early morning hours pass by on the clock is something that may be familiar to more than one person. Right now, the truth is that the simple act of closing your eyes tightly and thinking about falling asleep doesn’t work too muchbut it further increases anxiety and frustration due to not being able to be rested the next day. But here the experts suggest that it is better to get up. A simple rule. Beyond breathing techniques and treating a blank mind, we have a good ally with us: the “20 minute rule.” A practice that, far from being viral advice on social networks, the truth is that it has scientific support behind it that indicates that the best strategy against the inability to fall asleep is to get up. Its operation. To understand it, we must first descend to the substrate of associative learning, where the human brain is, above all, an optimizer of environmental patterns. In this way, when a healthy person goes to bed, the central nervous system interprets the physical stimulus of the mattress, pillow and darkness as a signal to initiate a transition to sleep. However, if we spend long periods awake in bed experiencing anxiety or having the same idea running through our minds all the time, the pattern becomes corrupted. Here the brain already associates the bed with frustration, and the bedroom stops being a parasympathetic sanctuary and becomes a way to activate our body. Your defender He is currently Dr. Matthew Walker, professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the Center for Human Sleep Science. And it is so important that he includes it as another piece of advice in one of his published books titled ‘why we sleep’ that says the following: Don’t stay awake in bed. If you’re still awake twenty minutes after going to bed, or if you start to feel anxious or worried, get up and do some relaxing activity until you feel sleepy. The anxiety of not being able to sleep can make it harder to fall asleep. What must be done. To follow the rule, it is important to get up and, logically, not turn on all the lights in the house, but rather use dim lights and, under no circumstances, look at screens such as television since it can activate us more. The ideal here would be to read a somewhat monotonous book (or in the case of students, notes), do breathing exercises or mechanical hobbies. From here you should return to bed only and exclusively when you feel sleepy again to try to sleep again. The guides say it too and, more specifically, the Clinical Practice Guide on Insomnia in Primary Care which specifically points to the following advice for patients: If it’s been 30 minutes since you went to bed and you’re still not sleeping, get out of bed, go to another room, and do something that doesn’t activate you too much, like reading a magazine or watching TV, for example. When you feel sleepy again, go back to your bedroom. The goal is for you to associate your bed with falling asleep as quickly as possible. Images | Magnificent In Xataka | We thought insomnia was just not being able to sleep. Now we know that there are five different disorders

charges in four minutes and 6,000 hours of stability to forget about lithium

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I think we all dream of that moment: connecting our cell phone to the power and having it go from 0 to 100% in the time it takes to make a coffee, without the battery suffering any long-term damage or losing capacity over the months. This still sounds like science fiction, but it is what a team of researchers in China has just proposed and they have achieved it. In short. A consortium of scientists from Southeast University, HiNa Battery Technology and Yangzhou University has developed a new quasi-solid electrolyte (QSE) designed specifically for sodium metal batteries. The results of your research, published in the scientific journal Nano-Micro Lettersshow how they have achieved ultra-fast charging (equivalent to filling the battery in about four minutes, at a rate of 15C) while retaining 90% of its capacity after 2,000 high-speed charge and discharge cycles (3C). Sodium has just hit the table compared to lithium. More in depth. To understand the magnitude of this finding, you have to look at the current market. sodium batteries They have been capturing the attention of the industry for some time because sodium is a material infinitely cheaper and more abundant on Earth than lithium, which makes it possible to avoid global supply chain bottlenecks and price volatility. Until now, however, sodium’s big Achilles’ heel was the “equivalent trade-off”: if you wanted fast charging, you drastically sacrificed battery life and safety. This was due to the slow transport of sodium ions and the instability of the interfaces within the stack. This new advance makes a symmetrical sodium cell operate stably for 6,000 hours uninterrupted without failures related to short circuits. For the end user, this translates into a near future where electric vehicles and electronic devices will be much more affordable, safer and have charging times that will completely eliminate the famous “range anxiety.” The science behind the milestone. Researchers have dubbed this solution “dual intertwined mediator engineering.” In simple terms, they have completely redesigned the highway on which the ions travel inside the battery, eliminating traffic jams and reinforcing shoulders, without losing the physical-chemical rigor of the process. In conventional electrolytes, sodium moves clumsily, achieving a transfer number (the metric that defines how efficiently and freely ions move) of just between 0.4 and 0.7. The new electrolyte, called Sn-FB QSE, achieves an almost perfect index of 0.94. This indicates “single-ion conduction”: sodium travels individually and directly, without dragging heavy elements in its path. To achieve this, they have used two main chemical protagonists that act as a team: The releaser (DFOB⁻ Salt): At the molecular level, this salt weakens the strong coordination interaction between the sodium ions and the polymer network of the electrolyte. By removing this chemical “glue”, the sodium is freed. Molecular dynamics simulations show that ion diffusion reaches 16.8 Ų ns⁻¹, about six times faster than in traditional liquid electrolytes. The builder shield (Tin ions, Sn²⁺): During charging, the Sn²⁺ is first reduced at the anode. This creates a protective film (scientifically known as Solid-Electrolyte Interface or SEI) rich in a sodium-tin alloy. This layer acts as a mold that homogenizes the electric field, forcing the sodium to deposit flat and uniformly. Goodbye to the dreaded “dendrites”, those needle-shaped metal structures that pierce the battery and cause short circuits. Additionally, the dual effect is completed at the other end of the stack. While tin protects the anode, DFOB⁻ is sacrificially oxidized at the cathode to form another extremely robust, inorganic protective layer (CEI) just 14 nm thick. This thin film stops the degradation of the electrolyte in its tracks at high voltages, guaranteeing the longevity of the battery. From the laboratory to the real world. Often, these discoveries remain in tiny laboratory “button batteries” that never see the light of day. But the most promising thing about this research is its scalability and practical application. The researchers constructed flexible, pressure-free “pouch cells.” In a video demonstration, they managed to use one of these batteries to charge a smartphone continuously, even while repeatedly bending and manipulating it with their hands, demonstrating exceptional flexibility and resilience. Added to this is that the electrolyte remains stable up to 4.7 volts, opening the door to pairing it with even more powerful materials in the future. And most importantly for the industry: this approach is fully compatible with current manufacturing methods and could even be extended to lithium and potassium metal batteries. The future knocks at the door. Charging your phone in four minutes without destroying the battery in a few months has always been the Holy Grail of consumer electronics. With materials engineering innovations such as this quasi-solid electrolyte, sodium is no longer “the cheap brother” to position itself as a very high-performance technology. Although there is still a way to go to see these batteries on commercial shelves, this discovery makes it clear that the future of portable energy involves abandoning exclusive dependence on lithium. The era of accidentally plugging in your cell phone and having battery power for the entire day is a big step closer to being our daily routine. Image | Unsplash Xataka | Switzerland is digging a pit 27 meters deep and longer than two football fields: all for a giant battery

Walking 20 minutes a day after age 55 is very good. The secret of healthy maturity is to do it much earlier

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An increasingly repeated idea is that, to have a quality retirementyou have to keep moving throughout maturity and with adequate physical activity. The problem is that many times people wait until they are 55 years old to start taking care of themselves and in many cases because they already have a metabolic disease. And this should make us aware that the sooner we start taking care of ourselves, the better. Walk It has been crowned as the star exercise for older adults, and the scientific evidence that supports it is overwhelming. A study from the year 2023 points out that walking 30 minutes a day for 5 days a week reduces the risk of age-related diseases, although it is especially emphasized that it must be done at a high speed and that requires some effort for the body and not as a simple walk. If this is done, we will be significantly reducing the risk of suffering from cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes, but also protects against dementia. And if that were not enough, a review conducted this year with 180,000 participants demonstrated an 18% to 30% reduction in mortality from all causes with moderate levels of physical activity. In figures. It’s not that Olympic records need to be broken, but simply taking 5,694 steps a day is associated with a 13% lower risk of mortality from all causes. And as we have said before, if it is done a speed high, a greater benefit is achieved. When to start. If the benefits in middle age are so incredible, why does science demand that we start much earlier? The answer lies in sarcopenia, which is the process of loss of muscle mass that we face when we begin to age without doing any type of strength exercise. And that is why the deadline of 30 years is set to begin to remedy it. Because? From this age onwards, it has been seen that between 3% and 5% of muscle mass is lost per decade. according to the NIHand other studies suggest that this figure can be between 3% and 8% per decade after age 30. AND from 60 years old the rate of decline becomes even greater. With all this information, it is estimated that right now between 10% and 20% of older adults suffer from sarcopenia, and lack of exercise is the main factor that worsens this progressive muscle loss. The recipe. The WHO here is very clear in its guidelines and, curiously, it does not make reductions upon reaching retirement, so it does not understand a specific age from which you must exercise no matter what, but rather it points out that you should always do it. That is why their recommendations are exactly the same for adults from 18 to 64 years old as for those over 65 years old: relativize. Between 150 and 300 minutes a week of moderate aerobic activity (such as walking), or between 75 and 150 minutes of vigorous intensity. Furthermore, the WHO asks to incorporate muscle group strengthening exercises at least two days a week for all adults. In the specific case of adults over 65 years of age, the only difference is that activities that improve balance must be added to the general recommendations three or more days per week to avoid fatal falls. Images | Emma Simpson In Xataka | There’s a reason why working out for an hour a day at the gym doesn’t give you results. And that reason is evolution In Trends | The trainers agree: “From the age of 55, you should walk every day for at least 20 minutes, preferring stairs, doing gentle stretches and working on balance.”

15 billion minutes watched, modest budget and no stars in the cast

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No Hollywood stars in the cast. No epic battles or expanded universes. With a budget that, by current industry standards, can be described as modest. ‘The Pitt‘has just become the most watched series on global streaming. A production about hospital emergencies in Pittsburgh that does not fit into any of the models that the industry has been perfecting for a decade. And that surprise factor may be one of the reasons for its success. The figures. The second season closed its broadcast very recently with more than 15 billion minutes watchedaccording to Nielsen metrics. On April 16, its season finale attracted 9.7 million viewers in its opening weekend alone, the best result in the series’ two-year life. According to Warner, the season averaged 15.4 million viewers per episode50% more than the first. We can compare with other successful series: in the week of March 30 to April 5, ‘The Pitt’ topped the Nielsen ranking with 1.16 billion minutes, becoming the only one of the top ten to surpass the billion barrier. ‘The Boys’, which concludes its run on Prime Video this year, came second with 889 million. ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, with decades of accumulated catalog and also a medical theme, appeared fourth in the general ranking. The secret of his success. The series was created by R. Scott Gemmill, with Noah Wyle and John Wells as executive producers: the same team that gave us ‘ER’ on NBC for years. And they have learned a lot from that experience: ‘The Pitt’ follows the 15-hour shift in the Emergency Department in real time, with one episode per hour on call. There are no time jumps, multiple scenarios, or subplots that drag on for seasons without resolving. And while other HBO productions like ‘The Last of Us‘ either ‘The House of the Dragon‘ show budgets of between 15 and 20 million dollars per episode, ‘The Pitt’ is pulling with just over 4 million per chapter. The cast’s salary model reflects that same economic philosophy: the nine main actors with a permanent contract earn between $35,000 and $50,000 per episode, amounts in the low-mid range of the sector that, however, represented attractive treatment for unknown actors at a time of contraction in the television market. The awards. In 2025, the series won five Emmy Awards, including Best Drama, becoming the first medical series to win. since ‘Emergency’ won it in 1996. Wyle won for leading actor and Katherine LaNasa won for supporting actress, in a ceremony in which the series defeated ‘Severance’, despite the fact that it had a bag of 27 nominations. How it looks. Another point that distinguishes the series from its competitors and that has done a lot for its success is its programming strategy: fifteen episodes per season, weekly broadcast and annual return every January. The first season premiered in January 2025, the second in January 2026. The third will try to reach January 2027. HBO CEO Casey Bloys has already spoken of ‘The Pitt’ as the equivalent of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, a procedural that may be active for decades. It seems too ambitious, but everything points in that direction: the weekly rhythm has allowed both to build fan loyalty and facilitate late additions of audiences with the season started, something that the TV series binge-watching Netflix type they don’t get. The dramatic structure also moves in that direction: the series has no problems incorporating and eliminating characters, even of great importance (as happens in a real ER) so that the cast and conflicts do not stagnate. ‘The Pitt’ doesn’t invent anything. And maybe that’s the mother of the lamb. Its cadence of weekly cases is typical of 1990s television and its cast is full of very little-known faces, so that nothing distracts us from the plots, which pile up in each episode at a frenetic pace. It is impossible to know if we are witnessing a broader trend, the return of a way of making television that was thought to be forgotten, or whether ‘The Pitt’ is going to be an isolated triumph. In any case, it is a refreshing slap in the face to series that mechanically stretch out for ten episodes what should be solved in one of fifty minutes. In Xataka | The big problem with the ‘Harry Potter’ series for HBO is also its main hook: it is identical to the movies

Madonna, Shakira and BTS are going to perform at halftime of the World Cup final. But the regulations only allow it to be 15 minutes

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For years, Gianni Infantino watched with envy the spectacle of American football breaks. This year, the president of FIFA is going to have what he has been wanting for years: the final of the July 19 World Cup in New Jersey will have the first halftime show from the history of the tournamentwith none other than Madonna, Shakira and BTS as headliners. A decision clearly conceived from the point of view of not stopping to think about the differences between soccer and American football. Elmo tells you. The most watched event on the planet debuts, 96 years after its first edition, a concept that American football has been perfecting for decades. The advertisement came in video form with Chris Martin of Coldplay, Elmo, Gustavo, Miss Piggy and other Muppets to break the news, that at one point they made a call with BTS. The tone was curiously lighthearted for the announcement of an event that handles astronomical figures. Good causes. The production of the event is carried out by the NGO Global Citizenfor which Chris Martin and Coldplay’s manager Phil Harvey are creative curators. The show is linked to the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fundan initiative that wants to raise 100 million dollars to expand access to education and soccer for children around the world, and which has already raised more than 30 million. One dollar from every ticket sold is donated to the fund. There are no precedents. No World Cup final had ever included a half-time show. There are ceremonies (opening, closing, before the opening whistle), but the break was always to rest (and the corresponding commercial break). The Qatar 2022 final, between Argentina and France, had a closing ceremony before the start of the match, with performances by Gims and Ozuna, but no shows in between. What changes. The scale, without a doubt. The 2022 final reached an average live audience of 571 million viewers worldwide, with more than 1.4 billion people watching at least one minute of the match. The 2024 Super Bowl brought together, in comparison, an average of 123.7 million viewers in the United States and about 62.5 million internationally. The platform that FIFA offers to artists who appear in the intermission has no comparison with any other. The problem. The laws of the game established by the IFAB, the international body that regulates football, set the break at a maximum of 15 minutes. A rule that few people notice, but that has a physical reason, which the ESPN analyst explained Gabriele Marcotti: Professional soccer players are conditioned for that maximum recovery interval. Extending it carries real risks of players getting cold or stiff. In the Super Bowl, the break is usually extended to 30 minutes, because the NFL sport includes regular breaks and players are accustomed to long timeouts. According to FIFA has confirmedthe show is planned to last 11 minutes, which in theory would keep it within the regulatory limit. However, it wouldn’t be entirely strange to see the IFAB modify its rules to accommodate the spectacle. But then… who thinks about the players? Little risk. On the other hand, the choice of Madonna, Shakira and BTS is a safe bet. All three have more than proven experience in mass events of this caliber. Madonna’s performance at the 2012 Super Bowl set the audience record for the halftime show with 114 million viewers, a figure that Bruno Mars would surpass two years later. The 2020 show, starring Shakira and Jennifer Lopez, attracted 103 million viewers. Shakira is also already linked to the World Cup thanks to the release of two official anthems: ‘Dai Dai’ in 2026 with the Nigerian Burna Boy, and ‘Waka Waka’ in 2010. BTS, for its part, arrives in the moment of greatest visibility for the band since the group interrupted its activity to complete mandatory military service in South Korea. Your album’ARIRANG’published in March 2026, debuted with record on US chartswhich makes this concert especially suitable for the band. Since April, the group has also been immersed in a world tour. Header | Julio Gómez Braojos

Marvel just gave 48 minutes of unfiltered violence to its most extreme character and you can watch it today on Disney+

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Frank Castle, better known as the Punisher (or The Punisher if you’re an old-school comic reader), hasn’t had his own series for seven years. Since Netflix canceled ‘The Punisher’ in 2019, the character has survived on the margins of the MCU until ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ rescued him in 2025. Now Marvel has opted for a different format with him in ‘The Punisher: One Last Kill’. It is not a series or a movie, but 48 minutes of a borderline antihero, co-directed by Jon Bernthal himself and with a level of violence that Disney+ never allowed before. ‘The Punisher: One Last Kill’ comes with the “Marvel Television Special Presentation” label, a format that the studio premiered in October 2022 with ‘The curse of the werewolf‘. The format is a kind of laboratory: projects of between 45 and 60 minutes that function as self-contained stories without the pressure of sustaining a series for several weeks. Both ‘The Curse of the Werewolf’ and the Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas special worked as cult pieces, and with Punisher, Marvel has taken the experiment to the extreme, because its adult rating is the first on the platform for a Marvel Studios project. Here we will see how an unexpected force drags Frank Castle back into battle. The Punisher believes he has eliminated the Gnucci crime family, the last link to his family’s murderers, and the surviving matriarch, Ma Gnucci, comes to him not to negotiate but to settle scores. The first half of the episode focuses on visions that haunt Castle; the second is a real-time action sequence inside an apartment building reminiscent of ‘The Raid’. The idea for the series arose during the filming of the first season of ‘Daredevil: Born Again’. Bernthal asked the director for permission to develop something centered on Frank Castle. The two had previously collaborated, and that gave Disney confidence to have Bernthal co-write the script and serve as executive producer. Shot on real locations in Queens and Brooklyn, the photography is by Robert Elswit (Oscar winner for ‘Wells of Ambition’), a firm that visually elevates this bet far above a typical television film. In Xataka | 12 premieres this week on Netflix, including the return of one of the platform’s most successful franchises

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