night

an old trick to know what time of night wild boars appear

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In the Middle Ages, tracking a wild boar was such a valuable skill that some nobles they spent whole days to interpret footprints, disturbed mud and almost invisible signs to find out where the animal had spent the night. In fact, the great wild boar hunts depended much more than reading the terrain than force or weapons, a tradition that survived for centuries even after the emergence of more advanced technologies. The trick that hunters of yesteryear used. Long before camera traps or drones existed, hunters resorted to simple and ingenious solutions to find out what time wild boars appeared. One of the most curious methods consisted of connect an alarm clock to a fishing line placed next to a bait station. When the animal moved a stone or touched the line while eating, the battery jumped and the clock stopped, recording the exact time of visit. The system had limitations and could fail due to rain, other animals or simple mechanical errors, but it reflects the extent to which knowing the habits of the wild boar has always been valuable information for those who lived with this species. A very adaptable animal. The obsession with understanding the wild boar has a simple explanation: it is one of the mammals most adaptable in Europe. Its varied diet, intelligence and high reproductive capacity allow it to thrive in forests, crops, marshes and even environments close to cities. This ease of taking advantage of any available resource has driven the growth of their populations during the last decades and has turned the species into a constant challenge for wildlife managers, farmers, conservationists and hunters. When population control disappears. The increase in specimens is especially visible in some protected areas where hunting activity was eliminated or significantly reduced. The ban on hunting in national parks was presented as a victory for conservation, but the passage of time has revealed that the absence of regulatory mechanisms also can cause problems. The debate, therefore, no longer revolves solely around the protection of animals, but about how to prevent a particularly successful species from altering the balance of the ecosystem. The alarm in Doñana. He most striking case is occurring in the Doñana National Park in Spain. Organizations such as Ecologistas en Acción and SEO/BirdLife have alerted that nest predation by wild boars is affecting the reproductive success of protected species such as the common blackbird and purple heron. The situation is especially striking because some of the groups that defended the elimination of hunting in these spaces are now those who warn of the effects of an increasingly abundant wild boar population. No nests and threatened species. The damage does not only affect those birds. In various areas of the marsh, wild boars have entered colonies of breeding and have destroyed eggs and chicks of species such as the slender-billed gull, the black-winged stilt, the white-faced vent or the pratincole. The ability of the wild boar to locate food and taking advantage of any opportunity makes these nesting areas especially vulnerable targets. Images of severely damaged colonies have reopened a debate that seemed closed about how to manage certain wildlife populations. Nature does not understand ideologies. Beyond the crossed accusations between conservationists and representatives of the hunting world, the Doñana episode has put an uncomfortable question on the table: managing wildlife requires practical decisions in addition to conservation principles. Hence the old alarm clock connected to a fishing line symbolized the effort to understand an animal that is difficult to observe. Today the tools are much more sophisticatedbut the challenge remains the same. The better we know the wild boar, the more evident it becomes that its extraordinary ability to thrive can become a problem when the mechanisms capable of maintaining balance with the rest of the ecosystem disappear. Image | PXHereRichard Bartz In Xataka | Neither drones nor snipers: wild boar hunters in Barcelona have a simpler natural and home remedy In Xataka | The technological war that we see in Ukraine has an unexpected replica in Barcelona: this time the enemy is thousands of wild boars

The biggest mistake you can make the night before the Selectivity exam is not leaving a topic unlooked at: it is not sleeping

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When we think of a student during exam time or of a candidate who is preparing very intensely for an exam that will offer him job stability, we automatically think of the classic image of being up early in the morning studying hundreds of underlined pages. Here it seems that sleeping becomes a minor issue due to the fact of studying and cramming hundreds of pages. But the reality is that study without sleeping It’s like wasting time, even though it may seem otherwise. The science. Here the science has a lot to sayand a robust body of evidence suggests that putting aside studying and getting into bed for 7 or 8 hours of sleep is by far the smartest decision you can make before an exam or during preparation. And something they don’t teach us is that studying is only half of the learning and memorization process that occurs in our brain, since the other half occurs while we are asleep in order to ingrain knowledge. In the brain. To understand why sleep is non-negotiable for students, we have to look at what happens inside our heads when we sleep. At these moments we may think that the brain is in a state of lethargy or shutdown, but the truth is that it is a period of frenetic activity at the neuronal level. We found one of the proofs in a published article in Neuron which suggests that the sleeping brain is biologically optimized for memory consolidation. Something very important, because during the day the brain acts like a true sponge, capturing a large amount of information quickly but volatile, which far exceeds the limit of its capacity to retain it. Transferring it to the hard drive. All this knowledge that we try to acquire in one afternoon has to be consolidated so that we can later remember it in the exam. This is where sleep comes in, which is where a hippocampal-cortical transferwhich allows the information acquired during wakefulness to be reactivated and transferred to the cerebral cortex, which is where the information is stored long-term. In Nature We found a fascinating article that detailed how neurons repeat at full speed the information learned during the first phase of sleep. This phase prepares the ground so that, during REM sleep, in the second half of sleep, synaptic connections are stabilized and strengthened to integrate all the information. But if we skip hours of sleep, or reduce it to 3-4 hours to be more efficient, this process is interrupted. The disaster of sleep deprivation. The penalty for not sleeping is severe, since if you decide to spend the night sleepless to review “a couple more topics”, you should know that the price you have to pay is a 40% reduction in learning capacity, in addition to an increase in memory losses and a plummet in concentration. And what these losses ultimately generate are temporary memory gaps, which is the typical situation in which we remain “blank” looking at the exam sheet without knowing what to write, although you remember having read it hours before. This is why a student with few hours of sleep shows much slower response times, is confused when making decisions, and suffers a radical worsening of attention. In surveys. In 2023, a study carried out with 640 students of the Autonomous University of Madrid during their exam period pointed out that 61.3% of those surveyed already sensed that their performance would improve if they slept more. From here, the researchers confirmed a direct and positive association between sleep quality and academic performance. Furthermore, they discovered that the “sleep debt” accumulated during the week took a very high toll, being associated with worse performance perceived by the students themselves. The perfect dose. Here the recommendation that we must keep in mind is that of the WHO or the National Sleep Foundation, which suggests that young adults should sleep between 7 and 8 hours a day, and even increase to 9 hours for students with great cognitive stress, such as opponents. Images | Ministry of Health In Xataka | If you wake up tired on a regular basis, your rest is fragmented. The good news is that science knows how to fix it

late night cafes for crying babies

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Japan may have few babies (of course many fewer than the authorities would like), but that does not mean that caring for them is easy. Especially for families for whom conciliation is difficult. To solve it in some locations in the country, an idea has begun to take shape: the yonakigoya or “cry night cafes”, places where parents (basically mothers) can go when their babies won’t let up and make them spend a sleepless night crying and lonely. In the yonakigoya Not only do they find places to sing lullabies without disturbing other family members who will have to get up early to face exhausting days of work. The idea is that they also serve as support networks and reach places where administrations do not. “Crying coffees”? Exact. They sound like science fiction. And it makes perfect sense that this is the case because the concept came from a manga published in 2023a work that talks about a place called Yonakigoya (‘House of Night Cry’) that serves as a refuge for mothers who are overwhelmed by the crying of their little ones. Straits Times assures that the author was speaking from her own experience and that she shared the idea for the first time online in 2017. The reception there was so good that she decided to reserve a place for it in her work. Something more than fiction. Beyond when, how and where the idea arose, what is undeniable is that the concept of yonakigoya It has penetrated Japanese society enough to make the leap from fiction to reality. It has revealed Kyodo Newsone of the most popular news agencies in the country. A few days ago, its reporter Maki Shinozaki published a report on how the phenomenon of late-night “cry coffees” is expanding throughout the country. The piece has been echoed by media around the world, from newspapers the Sanyo News either Sankei Shimbum to the british The Times. Between toast and books. The yonakigoya They seem to have more of a support network than places that seek to make money from the cries of babies and the anguish of their parents. In fact, in Hokkaido The service is provided in a cafeteria specializing in French toast that has decided to open certain nights a month to help mothers, in Tokushima there is another support center that organizes “coffees for crying children” every month and in Aichi a bookstore has decided to join the bandwagon by organizing evenings for babies. In the first case (the cafeteria) the premises open for free between 9:00 p.m. on Sunday and 6:00 a.m. on Monday and in the latter (the bookstore) the service is provided with the help of volunteers such as teachers or midwives from 8:30 p.m. to 12:00 p.m. Although Kiodo News and the Japanese media report only certain specific cases (which suggests that it is not a mass phenomenon), a quick search on Google shows that the concept generates interest and expands. For babies… and adults. At the French toast cafe in Hokkaido they have installed mats for babies to crawl and (hopefully) sleep, as well as spaces reserved for breastfeeding and diaper changes. However, usually yonakigoya They only look after the children. They also do it for the adults who arrive with them. The idea is that they serve as support for parents, mainly women, who are those who use them the mostespecially during their maternity leaves, while their husbands sleep before facing long days of work. Although the country has taken steps towards a labor model that allow conciliationat the end of 2024 the Government published a report which revealed that 10.1% of men and 4.2% of women work more than 60 hours per week. In the country it has even become sadly popular ‘karoshi’ conceptdeath from overwork. “A refuge”. Madoko Nozawa, owner of the toast cafe that is converted into yonakigoya Sunday mornings, has explained to Kyodo who decided to embark on the project inspired by her own experience. She is also a mother and in her day, she remembers, she spent sleepless nights because her baby wouldn’t stop crying and her husband had to get up early the next day. “I want this to be a refuge where people can feel like they are not alone in their struggles,” share. “While I was trying to put my children to sleep, I couldn’t move and felt totally overwhelmed,” points out another mother to whom the newspaper Chunichi Shimbun interviewed in the bookstore-yonakigoya from Aichi Prefecture. “I still don’t have many people I can talk to naturally about parenting. A place like this is a source of support.” A critical note. Although the yonakigoya They demonstrate Japan’s ability to create support networks, their success also leaves some critical readings. To begin with, the fact that those who use them are mostly women reveals that parenting still falls largely on them. It’s nothing new. In 2022 the Association of Medical Colleges of Japan published a study on childcare among doctors that revealed a significant gender gap: 31.8% of female doctors with children acknowledged that they shouldered 100% of the childcare and 55.2% estimated that they assumed more than 80% of the tasks. Among men, these percentages were respectively 8.4 and 14.5%. In the middle of the crisis. Another critical observation brings it Kaori Ichikawa, professor at the Tokyo University of Information Sciences, who points out the paradox that in the midst of demographic crisis and despite the huge amount of resources that the Government is allocating to promoting births, it must be the private and community initiative that cares for mothers at night. “Government support is often limited at night, weekends and holidays, so the public and private sectors must work together to create places like late-night cafes, where they can seek help when they need it,” claims. Images | Pema G. Lama (Unsplash), Kishor (Unsplash) In Xataka | In 1966, a superstition left a dent in the Japanese population pyramid. 60 years later, history threatens to … Read more

The problem with eating chocolate at 11 at night is not the calories, it is what it does to your sleep

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There are people who follow authentic rituals before going to sleep, such as a good shower to release all the tension of the day, but also take a little black chocolate so you can sweeten your mouth before going to sleep. A practice that for many is something that is an aberration, but to know if it is really a bad idea to do it, we have to turn to science and the studies that exist about chocolate. A principle against. For the detractors of nighttime chocolate, the enemy is not sugar as such, but the chocolate itself and how rich it is in the methylxanthineswhich are alkaloids that stimulate the central nervous system. And here are two that stand out above others, such as the caffeinewhich is quite well known, and theobromine, which is the main stimulant in dark chocolate. Here the scientific reviews they point that these substances act by blocking the receptors where adenosine binds to act. And it is no wonder, because adenosine is the molecule that it accumulates in our brain throughout the day to generate “sleep pressure.” But if methylxanthines block the point where they have to bind to act, the brain does not receive the signal that it is tired. Your problem. Although it is true that theobromine is “milder” than caffeine, its half-life in the body is long. This means that that 11pm chocolate could still be blocking your desire to sleep at 2am, increasing sleep latency and causing more nighttime awakenings. The importance of time. Science has now stopped looking only at calories to focus on chrononutrition, since it is suggested that chocolate influences circadian rhythms depending on the time at which it is taken. Here the studies they point Because chocolate can be a great ally to resynchronize the biological clock if it is consumed during the active phase in the morning, but taking it outside of this phase, when the body is preparing for rest, makes it difficult to synchronize our peripheral clocks. In short, we are sending contradictory signals to the body. Not everything is negative. In science there are not only extremes, but we can find a great spectrum of grays in the middle. This is because there is also evidence that qualifies the message that chocolate causes insomnia, because in animal models cocoa can improve certain sleep disorders induced by chronic stress. This suggests that, in high-stress contexts, the antioxidant and neuroprotective components of cocoa could help adjust the sleep-wake rhythm. However, researchers warn that this benefit is observed when cocoa is part of the general diet, not necessarily when it is consumed as a “bomb” of sugar and stimulants just before turning off the light. It is not universal. The effect of chocolate does not occur in everyone in the same way, meaning that each person can experience it differently, depending on the amount of chocolate consumed and also on sensitization. We must keep in mind that each person metabolizes at a different rate, so there will be people who can eat a lot of chocolate and these molecules will not affect them at all. Images | freepik In Xataka | Something strange is happening with the chocolate crisis in Spain: households consume less, but business improves

In Barcelona they did not drop below 19°C on an April night. And that’s more important than all the heat waves

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It’s one piece of information, just one. But he alone weighs more than all the daytime maxims combined. Barcelona-Fabra just broke the record of a century with a nighttime minimum in April above 19 degrees. And yes, 19 degrees seems little compared to the 33-35 that the Guadalquivir Valley experienced that same day in the morning; But if climate change has been teaching us something for decades, it is that appearances can be deceiving. That anomaly called ‘April’. Although it is not being as scandalous as January, April is breaking all historical records. The fact that has been repeated the most is that AEMET has recorded more than 70 records temperature only in the first time of the month. In aggregate terms, we are talking about a sustained thermal anomaly of between 5 and 10 degrees. And it is interesting because, although it is evident that we are not talking about a ‘heat wave’, experiencing an anomaly of this size in this context is something tremendously revealing. Not only because they are the temperatures that most affect the population’s rest, but because they are the ones that rise the most due to the effect of climate change and the ones that best explain where the country’s climate is going. But what has happened? On April 10, at the Fabra Observatory in Barcelona, ​​at the foot of Tibidabo, the minimum it did not drop below 19 degrees. That is, it is the warmest night in at least a century. And it was not an isolated event: the ALmería airport registered a minimum of 23.3 degrees that same night. That’s two degrees higher than the previous record. The month, as I said, has had more than 70 temperature records. AND, according to Duncan Winger of Tiempo.comwhat awaits us between the 18th and the 24th looks to be much worse. The explanation is simple… because it arises from two combined elements: a subtropical ridge installed on the peninsular vertical that blocks the arrival of Atlantic storms and a very warm air mass from the south that causes little relief at night. …but the fact that it is ‘explainable’ doesn’t reassure anyone. Above all, because we come from 9th warmest winter on record and an especially hot February with an anomaly of more than 2.4 degrees above average. Everything seems to indicate that the meteorological data show the structural warming that the models indicated. But… what can we expect from all this? First of all, be clear that nights are becoming a problem. Without leaving Barcelona, We know that mortality from natural causes in the city it increases up to 9.2% on nights when the temperature does not drop below 23 degrees. There are more consequences, of course: a good part of the country’s agriculture is in critical phases and the Mediterranean is getting so hot which is going to cause innumerable problems. But warm nights before HVAC systems are turned on are a public health risk that is difficult to control. Image | BenBaso | Xataka In Xataka | In two days, AEMET is clear that spring is suspended: an “early summer” arrives in Spain

In Spain we love to have dinner at ten at night. To our biological clock and our heart, not so much

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Eating dinner at 9 or 10 at night is something that is quite normal for Spaniards, but seen by foreigners, it is something that shocks them quite a bit as it is so different from the customs of other countries. And although our normality is to eat at three in the afternoon and dinner at ten at nightthe reality is that our biological clock is not designed to digest large amounts of food when the sun has already set. Time matters. Although in recent years we have been obsessed with looking at the ingredients of what we eat or the amount of calories it contains, the reality is that science gives more and more importance to consumption. This is where chrononutrition comes from, an emerging discipline that studies the relationship between circadian cycles and our diet, and that little by little is seeing that eating late dinners has a direct impact on our metabolic health. our quality of sleep and our risk cardiovascular. The biological clock. Our body works like an orchestra perfectly synchronized by circadian rhythmsand leaving them has serious consequences. We see it, for example, with the famous jet lagthe time change or even when we go to bed at a time that is not ours. The result is that the body has to recover again and has important effects, such as great fatigue. In the case of eating at odd hours, especially at dinner, we are desynchronizing the peripheral clocks that the cells of organs as important as the pancreas or liver have. And this results in a drastic worsening of glucose tolerance and also insulin secretion. Its effect. And it has consequences, since when we eat dinner close to our biological bedtime, that is, when the sun is setting, the body reduces the consumption of nocturnal fats and there is also a large release of cortisol, which is the stress hormone, and the release of melatonin, which is essential for falling asleep, is delayed. This is something that became clear in a 2025 meta-analysis, where it is detailed that eating after nine at night worsens the rhythms of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine, which not only has a metabolic impact, but also an emotional one, increasing the risk of depression. The Spanish case. If we focus precisely on our country, we have as a reference the study led by the ISGlobal institute that analyzed to 100,000 participants of the NutriNet-Santé cohort. Here it was concluded that dining after 9 pm is associated with a greater cardiovascular risk, especially impacting the risk of cerebrovascular disease in women. In the case of weight. If you want to lose weight, dinner time also has a lot of influence, as noted in a study by researcher Marta Garaulet that showed that people who eat later at midday lose less weight than those who eat early, even when they consume the same calories and expend the same amount of energy and sleep the same amount. Added to this are studies in Catalan adults that associate the delay of the first meal of the day with a higher BMIwhile extending overnight fasting is related to a lower BMI. Beyond the scale. Although we may keep in mind the impact on digestion, the reality is that studies suggest that having late meal times is related to poorer quality of sleep. This was seen in the United States, where science pointed out that in middle-aged women it has been proven that bringing dinner time closer to bedtime prolongs the time it takes to fall asleep, therefore shortening the effective duration of rest. And as we already know, having poor quality sleep generates many other problems, such as a worse cardiometabolic profile, which generates a true vicious circle. Its nuances. Logically, having a late dinner alone does not explain the state of health of the Spanish population, since the context has a lot of influence. This is where the traditional Spanish Mediterranean diet comes in, which makes dinners later meals, but also much lighter, leaving the main energy weight for the midday meal. That is why you should keep in mind that a late, copious and ultra-processed dinner followed by a trip straight to bed is not the same as a light dinner accompanied by some physical activity before going to sleep. Even so, science suggests that, if the objective is to reduce metabolic risk, improve carbohydrate metabolism and lose weight, the winning strategy involves advance dinner time and maintain a longer overnight fasting window. Images | Eiliev Aceron Shane In Xataka | Healthy obesity does not exist: why “being fat but fit” is nothing more than a myth

10,000 tons of almonds have disappeared in Granada in a single night. It is a warning of what is about to happen.

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On the night of March 30, 2026, about 30 million euros they vanished. The figures They are from COAGbut (taking into account the precedents from the beginning of the decade and the growth of almond cultivation) they sound plausible: the region that concentrates the largest almond production in the country, lost around 10,000 tons due to a late frost. And it’s not even the most interesting thing. What the hell is up with almonds? With 70,000 hectares dedicated to almonds, the Granada Altiplano has become the national epicenter of the production of this fruit. Paradoxically, we might add. Because it is something very rare: there are not many more cases of crops that do not stop growing on the surface while their vulnerability increases to levels never seen before. A vulnerability that, of course, is not limited to March 30. Because that would be the easy thing to do: blame everything on cold air intrusion from the north that knocked down the thermometers of the Altiplano (-5 in Galera and Baza, -4 in Puebla de Don Fabrique or -3 in Castril) just at the moment of greatest sensitivity of the almond tree. However, that is only part of the story. Of course, frost during flowering and fruit setting is a problem. But in the last five years, the region has suffered 3 frosts of this type and the area of ​​almond trees does not stop growing. That is to say, the vulnerability is deeper and exceeds the climate risks: we are talking about the advance of the almond wasp, insufficient agricultural insurance, the tariff asymmetry with our main competitor (California) and, of course, the enormous pressure that international prices exert on farmers. And what happened to the harvest? According to COAGpreliminary estimates draw a very complicated scenario: between 8,000 and 12,000 tons lost, an economic impact of between 25 and 40 million euros and the complete loss of all production in the most affected areas. The assessment of the Junta de Andalucía and the Ministry is missing, but the figures serve to measure the destruction. Hunger with the desire to eat. Spanish almond production It was already affected by the drought and none of the explanations are surprising (late rains, winds that make pollination difficult, hailstorms in April and fungi derived from humidity). However, in 2025, things seemed to turn around and the campaign was positive. But it was a statistical artifact: production grew by 5%but the productive surface had increased by 10. That is to say, the situation was still complicated. And the data does not stop changing. It is enough to keep in mind that 15% of all the almond trees planted in Spain are not yet productive to understand that the crop has been experiencing a boom for years that does not end (and that may end by give us some displeasure). What does the almond tree need to avoid becoming the new lemon? That is, so that we are not forced to have to start ripping them out in a few years. And the answer is also simple: what you need is a better safety net, a better way of looking to the future, a better way of moving in the market. I have said it many times: In agriculture, Spain is a giant with feet of clay. And the almond tree is the best example that this is still the case and we have enormous difficulties to change it. Image | Marcia Cripps In Xataka | Spain is the second largest almond producer in the world. Tariffs or not, farmers are already in trouble

at night and with northern lights

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The mission Artemis II It left on April 2 (peninsular time) after several delays and today, April 4, it is already closer to the Earth than to the Moon, according to the Artemis Real-time Orbit Website” (AROW)a tracker that allows the Orion ship to be followed in real time. And from there the astronaut team can do some fabulous photos of the universe with the iPhones they carry on board or with the cameras, a pair of Nikon D5, as can be read in NASA inventory. and go if they are doing them. Below these lines we see an image of the Earth taken by NASA astronaut and commander of the Artemis II mission, Reid Wiseman, from one of the four windows principals of Orion. The typical image that we usually take when we go on vacation and take a photo from the plane or train window, but on another level. At an interstellar level. Artemis II looking back at Earth. POT But to see the Earth in all its splendor, it is better to take a look at the latest thing that NASA has shared: under the title of “Hello World“, a classic of programming which in this scenario makes all the sense in the world, yesterday, April 3, NASA spread another photo of Reid Wiseman, which the space agency said he took after completing the translunar injection maneuver. Of course, light years from what the US agency has previously shared. And that you can see the outline of the window. The Earth as we have never seen it before We’ve seen many, many images of Earth from space, but this one is truly special if you look closely. One of the most impressive details of the image is that thanks to the angle and distance appreciate two auroras at the same time, the boreal and the southern. Those green ribbons that line the perimeter of the Earth (top right and bottom left, respectively) are our atmosphere glowing as the magnetic shield deflects the solar wind. Just above both there is a very thin layer of orange color: it is the atmospheric luminescence or airglow and it is not caused by the solar wind, but by chemical reactions in the upper atmosphere that release the energy accumulated during the day. But also at the bottom right you can see zodiacal light during Earth’s “solar eclipse”that diffuse, almost ghostly glow with an almost triangular shape that extends across the plane where the planets orbit. It is cosmic dust that shines by reflecting the light of the Sun and that can be seen thanks to the fact that, from the Orion spacecraft, there is no atmosphere to scatter the light or hide the most subtle details of the cosmos. Earth from the perspective of Artemis II. POT On the other hand, this photograph has another peculiarity: the majority of images that we see of the Earth from space are from the daytime side of the Earth, thus achieving a bright photograph of our planet in which the stars are barely visible due to the camera settings (low ISO, high shutter speed and/or closed aperture), but here the Sun is behind the Earth. This means that the Orion crew is looking at the night side of the Earth. For photography lovers: NASA provides EXIF of the image, where an ISO of 51,200 and a long exposure can be seen, necessary to capture the light of cities and the auroras. These are two of the first photographs sent by the Artemis II team, but NASA has a section of the website available where you can see all those who share. In Xataka | NASA has published 96 fantastic posters of the universe that you can download for free in HD In Xataka | NASA has just shared some impressive images of the Helix Nebula like we have never seen it before. Cover | POT

Neuroscience is debunking the myth of “crazing” the night before

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Given the need to want to study a specific topic efficiently, we can do numerous searches for the best technique to achieve itespecially those of us who are students. At first, science and education have maintained an almost unbreakable dogma: for a brain to associate two events and learn, constant repetition is the key. but now nuances have been added. What we do. Nowadays, it can be a study technique to stay up all night with coffee in hand trying to cram an entire syllabus intensely in a short period of time. This way, we only see the syllabus once and never again. But this is not the best study, reading or productivity technique in general. An evolution. For decades, classical learning models, such as those based on traditional reinforcement learning, assumed that the more times you are exposed to a stimulus followed by a reward (or hit), the faster you learn. However, a revolutionary study from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), led by researcher and published recently in Nature Neuroscience has shown that we were looking at the problem backwards. And we saw it the other way around because the important thing in study is not how many times we expose ourselves to new knowledge, but the time that has passed between two temporal moments in which we have begun to study a concept. And this is precisely what tools such as the famous flashcards that appear in the educational field with increasing force take advantage of. What has been seen? The research team in this case carried out experiments with mice where dopamine was measured that freed your brain, pointing to the fact that the learning rate scales proportionally with the time interval between rewards, and not with the number of trials. To understand it easily, if a mouse has a long interval between two stimuli, it needs much fewer repetitions for its brain to release the dopamine necessary to consolidate what it has learned. This is why we see how the brain optimizes learning based on the total time invested in a spaced manner, making quick and repetitive bursts of study very ineffective. Because? We already know that spacing out study is best for our memory, but… Why does this happen? Here science tells us that dopamine acts as a very specific teaching signal in our brain circuits. In this way, when learning something new, dopamine updates our “predictions” retrospectively. When we try to understand why our memory works this way, we see that too much dopamine during intensive initial learning can even impair early memory consolidation, causing us to be so overwhelmed that we retain nothing. But when it has time to act, it has the ability to strengthen the synapses to establish knowledge in our long-term memory. Simply put, if we don’t let the brain rest between repetitions, the neurochemical consolidation processes are not allowed to do their job. In real life. As we have been repeating, this is the scientific basis that establishes the bases of the study focused on flashcards or even in well-known applications such as Duolingo to learn languages. These systems take advantage of spaced repetition to maximize the retention in memory of the new knowledge they are faced with. And in case evidence is missing, a study done on medical students has shown that using double-spaced repetition techniques compared to single-spaced or traditional intensive study increases long-term knowledge retention drastically, since 62% retention is achieved, while before the study 52% was retained. Images | sq lim In Xataka | People who go to the library to study do not do it for show: science is clear that it is very productive

Spending a night at one of LVMH’s most exclusive vacation spots isn’t cheap: $70,000 a night

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There are luxury resorts. And then there are places for which there is still no category that does justice to what they offer. He Cheval Blanc Randheli Private Island, located in the Maldives, cobra $70,000 for a single night stay in its facilities. And no, we didn’t miss any extra zeros when writing it. The property belongs to the LVMH hotel divisionthe same group behind luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Moët & Chandon or Tiffany & Co, and what it offers for that price goes far beyond a bed overlooking the Indian Ocean: an island just for you. A resort that was already unattainable for most Cheval Blanc Randheli is located on Noonu Atoll and can only be reached by seaplane from Malé, capital of the Maldives. He LVMH luxury hotel It is divided into two islands: one where the main resort is located and a second island, separate from the main one, whose price can reach $70,000 per night. That is to say, for that price you are not renting accommodation in a villa, nor a presidential suite. It is literally a private island, with its own beaches, its pier, its dedicated staff and more than 8,000 square meters of total area. A proposal for which the word “exclusive” falls short. The luxury resort opened its doors in November 2013 as part of the Maisons collection of the brand. The main complexlocated on the largest island, is the one that welcomes the most guests, with 45 loft-style villas distributed between overwater, garden and beachfront options. Each of them is equipped with private pool infinite edge. The experience offered by this resort begins even before arriving, as guests They travel on the private seaplane by Cheval Blanc after a stay in an exclusive waiting room in Malé. Common facilities include five select restaurants, a Guerlain spagym, water activities and even the only surf simulator with artificial waves in the Maldives. Conventional villa rates at the main resort are now out of reach of most pockets. According to the accommodation portals in the areatheir prices range between $2,268 and $7,688 per night depending on the type of accommodation. The island of millionaires Cheval Blanc Randheli Private Island is an independent island separated by just 50 meters of deep turquoise sea from the main island. It has a surface area of ​​one hectare and is only accessible through a private pier. The island houses an exclusive mansion four bedrooms with approximately 2,200 square meters built, with capacity for up to eight guests. The master bedroom has panoramic views of the ocean, double bathroom, dressing room, office and its own living room. The residence also includes two family rooms on the ground floor and a separate villa for companions who prefer more privacy, making it an ideal option for families or groups of friends. This paradisiacal mansion also has three connected living rooms, a piano lounge, a private bar and a 25-meter-long pool complete the set, creating the feeling of living in a luxury tropical residence in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Beyond the luxury accommodations and equipment for the exclusive inhabitants of this island, it also includes a private spa with treatmentsgym, movie theater, tropical gardens, private beaches, pergola for outdoor dining and meditation pavilions. So that you do not lack anything during your stay, the service It is run by a resident team dedicated exclusively to the island’s guests, available 24 hours a day. A private boat connects the island with the rest of the resort, so that guests can change islands whenever they wish and eat in the restaurants, bars, kids club and diving center of the main complex, without sacrificing an ounce of their privacy. All for the modest price of 70,000 a night. In Xataka | Hotel chains no longer just offer luxury rooms: Ritz-Carlton dives into the superyacht business Image | Cheval Blanc Randheli

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