people

pay young people for dating apps

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To desperate problems, desperate solutions. In full demographic debaclethe authorities of Kōchi (a prefecture in southern Japan) have decided to help their young people find a partner a peculiar shape: paying for their subscription to dating apps. The aid is only aimed at residents under 40 years old, cannot exceed 20,000 yen (110 euros) and is limited to a list of certified social networks, but it gives an idea of ​​the extent to which the Administration is determined to reverse the birth crisis that is clouding the future of the country. That it has focused the focus on apps is not a coincidence either. Help to flirt. Japan is not willing to sit idly by while its birth rate declines at a rate record speed and the country is moving deeper and deeper into a demographic catastrophe of unpredictable consequences. Over the last few years, the Japanese authorities have launched millionaire programs to activate their birth rate, which includes from numerous ‘baby checks’ to job improvements that facilitate conciliation. In few places, however, have they been as imaginative as in Kōchi Prefecture. There the Government has decided help your young to pay dating apps. “Helping singles”. Kōchi’s idea is as simple as it is shocking. a few days ago the prefecture announced a “subsidy program to cover app usage fees.” Said like this, it may not seem too interesting, but things change when you go down to detail. Its objective is very specific: to lend a hand to young people in the region who want to register on dating platforms and, ultimately, “to help singles who want to meet someone or get married.” With small print. The measure, of course, has fine print. Only Kōchi residents between 20 and 39 years old can apply and must prove that the app began to be used on April 1. In fact, the aid is designed to pay for subscriptions between April 2026 and March 2027. Its amount is also limited: in no case can it exceed 20,000 yen, about 110 euros. The curious thing is that Kōchi is not the first to use this trick. In the region of Miyazaki They also launched a similar program in 2025, although with an aid of only 10,000 yen per year, and in Tokyo they have even promoted a dating app focused on a very specific user profile: people looking for a stable partner. Is any application worth it? No. That is another of the peculiarities of the Kōchi initiative. The prefecture subsidizes only subscriptions to certain apps preselected, although among them is Tapple, a platform very popular among singles in Japan. Curiously, just a year ago it incorporated a function that allows its users to verify officially their marital status, which allows the rest of the people in the network to know if they are married or not. In the list from Kōchi also includes Pairs, D3 or Omiai, among others. A well-calibrated bet. That the Kōchi authorities have decided to bet on dating apps is no coincidence. A few years ago the Government carried out a survey in which, among other questions, he asked the Japanese how they had met their partners. A quarter (25%) of those who had gotten married acknowledged that they contacted their better half through dating apps, which makes them the great matchmaker in the country. 21% said they had met their spouse at work and 10% at a school. How much does it cost to flirt? It is also no coincidence that Kōchi has set its subsidy at 110 euros per year. “The current price of annual membership fees is just over 20,000 yen, so we set the amount to cover most of it,” explains an official to The Sankei Shimbun. Those who benefit from the measure will only have to cover the rest of the costs. In its efforts to make it as easy as possible for singles, the prefecture even has a specific program which helps those who move to Kōchi to look for a boyfriend or girlfriend. Again it may seem like a strange initiative, but in Japanese society only a tiny percentage of babies are born out of wedlock. If Kōchi (or any other region) wants more children, it first needs more couples. Goal: more babies. Although Japan is not the only country suffering the effects of demographic winter, the situation there is particularly worrying. Their multiple efforts to reactivate their birth rate do not seem to be giving results (unlike what seems to happen in South Korea) and in 2025 the country recorded its tenth consecutive year of decline, reaching a new historic floor. The outlook is so discouraging that Japan is moving at a minimum demographics I didn’t expect to see until the 2040s. Kōchi is no exception. Macrotrends shows that takes years losing inhabitants. Images | Kochi Prefecture Victoriano Izquierdo (Unsplash) In Xataka | Japan wanted to know what bothers its citizens most about tourism. The answer is extremely Japanese

More than 2,000 years ago, people were already taking to the grave the greatest “bestseller” of all time: the ‘Iliad’

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No matter how many centuries pass or where they dig their shovels, the soil of Egypt remains a box of surprises for historians. Just checked it a team of archaeologists who have found a surprise when exploring an ancient necropolis from the Roman era of Al-Bahansalocated almost 200 km from Cairo. In addition to mummies, vessels with ashes and amulets, the researchers located one of the largest bestsellers of all time: the ‘Iliad’. The question is… What was he doing there? In a place in Minia… The news has taken care of advance it the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities of Egypt, which gives an idea of ​​the relevance that the country gives to the discovery. An archaeological campaign led by doctors Maite Mascort and Esther Ponce has discovered mummies and funerary offerings in a necropolis from the Roman era of Al-Bahansa (Minia), the ancient Oxyrhynchus. The site is not exactly new. In fact, the Government speaks of two parts of the necropolis: number 65 and number 67, a Ptolemaic burial. located in 2024. The tombs were also not spared from grave robbers, who once damaged the coffins and probably took valuables with them. Still, the Spanish-Egyptian mission has made interesting discoveries. To the other world with Homer. Perhaps the most fascinating is the one found inside one of the mummies from the Roman period. When examining the body, the archaeologists extracted a papyrus with a fragment of the ‘Iliad’, the universal work attributed to Homer. To be more precise, they identified the passage ‘Catalogue of Ships’from the second book of the Greek epic and which describes part of the Achaean forces deployed in the Troy campaign. “This discovery adds a literary and historically significant dimension to the site,” they celebrate from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism. Gold leaf and decorated linen. It was not the only surprise that archaeologists got when exploring the tomb no.65. The necropolis preserved several mummies from the Roman era carefully wrapped in linen decorated with geometric motifs. Even the polychrome wooden coffins and the fragments of gold leaf that were attached to some of the corpses are preserved. Tongues of gold and copper. It was not the only thing that the archaeologists found. When exploring the hypogeum, the researchers located three languages made with gold and a fourth made with copper next to the mummies that were still preserved in the funerary chamber. These were probably mortuary amulets that were placed in the mouths of the deceased to facilitate their journey to the Hereafter. Why is it important? Beyond how curious they may be, the findings are valuable for two main reasons. To begin with, as has been responsible for highlighting the head of Archeology and Tourism, Sharif Fathi, confirm the wealth and enormous diversity that accumulated in the Egyptian civilization over the centuries, including the Ptolemaic era and the domination of Rome. Furthermore, the mummies and other vestiges offer a valuable clue about the funerary practices used in Al-Bahansa in Greek and Roman times. Vessels with ashes. When exploring the east of tomb No. 67, from the Ptolemaic period, the archaeologists found a ditch with three limestone chambers in which they were still preserved. historical treasures. For example, in one of the rooms they located a stone slab and a vessel with charred remains that seem to belong to an adult, in addition to the bones of a baby and the head of a feline. All carefully wrapped in fabrics. In the second chamber there was also a container with the remains of cremated people and an animal of the same species. Statues representing the god were located in the surroundings. Harpocrates and even a figurine of the god Cupid. Images | Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (Facebook) In Xataka | We just discovered that a semi-legendary Nile king really existed thanks to a 17th century document found in trash

“Toxic” people are altering your DNA and making you age almost a year faster

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‘Toxic’ people can be anywhere, such as the office, school or even in one’s own homewith an effect that quickly depletes our energy when dealing with them. In psychology, these types of people are beginning to be called ‘hasslers‘ and are defined as people who complicate life, whether they are family members, work colleagues or even partners. The problem is that they can even affect physical and mental health. They make us old. That a toxic person can damage our mental health It is something that we have already internalized enough from our own experiences, but now the PNAS magazine has confirmed that chronic stress derived from these relationships has an impact on the “biological clock”, causing our cells to age much faster. How it looked. To reach this conclusion, the researchers analyzed to more than 2,000 adults from the state of Indiana in the United States for almost 20 years. But here they did not limit themselves to asking them about their stress levels in a survey, but rather they cross-referenced the data with different biological markers from their saliva. From here, scientists used epigenetic clocks as algorithms that do not measure how old we are on the DNI, but rather different key points in our DNA that indicate how aged our cells are. Among these points, for example, stands out the methylation of DNA or some very specific chemical marks. The results. This is where it was seen that indeed people who were in relationships with very conflictive people in their immediate environment had an accelerated aging rate of an extra 1.5%. This means that biological age increases by an average of nine months. Because? That something that seems purely psychological affects on a physical level seems like something that has little to do with it, but the reality is that interacting with these people constantly increases the levels of cortisol in the blood, which is the stress hormone. And having a lot of cortisol is not recommended at all, since it is related to an increase in oxidative stress that damages cells. But in addition, the study observed that this process inhibits a key enzyme in cells such as telomerase. And it is key because its function is to protect DNA to prevent it from shortening at an accelerated rate to the point where the cell has to be destroyed. Something that also favors cellular aging. Not everyone suffers the same. Here women, smokers and people with low social support show greater vulnerability to this accelerated aging by being with the wrong people. Furthermore, the study identified that family members and work colleagues have a greater weight in this wear and tear than friends, probably due to the difficulty of “escape” from those ties easily, while with a colleague you have to put up with it no matter what. It can be fixed. Until now we are quite clear that having a toxic relationship gives us more misfortunes than joys, but the question is obligatory: can we go back? Here science suggests that we are facing a partially reversible process, meaning that with psychological therapy, the establishment of clear limits in the social sphere or even physical distancing from that toxic person, the clock can be “slowed down.” Images | Italy Gariev In Xataka | The science of being single: a macro study warns that well-being plummets if you have not had a partner by 25

We thought we were 8 billion people on the entire planet. Until some researchers started crunching the numbers

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In November 2022, the UN celebrated that we were now 8 billion humans on Earth. They are estimates, of course, but beyond the figure, the really interesting thing is that in 2023 we do not reach the replacement rate and that humanity will reach its peak at the end of the century to, inevitably, start to fall. But… to what extent can we trust these accounts? It is something that has been on the table for some time and, according to a study of 2025, we have made a mistake in counting. So much so that we have left several hundred million people behind. Can we trust the numbers? “Calculating the number of people on the planet is an inexact science.” That was demographer Jakub Bijak’s comment to BBC in mid-2024, just when the World Population Prospects study. Something scientific is something exact, but the researcher also commented that the only thing you can be sure of when predicting population figures is the lack of certainty. That, be careful, does not mean that demographers take figures out of thin air. “It is a difficult thing based on our experience, knowledge and every piece of information we have access to,” said Toshiko Kanera, an expert in demographic forecasts. Demographers draw on the data and trends of each country since 1950, but… what if it had not been counted correctly? We are missing millions. In a 2025 study published in Natureresearchers at Aalto University in Finland show how the data sets handled by demographers “profoundly and systematically” underestimate population figures around the world. The serious thing is that we would be talking about hundreds of millions more people living on Earth. Example of the tools that demographers use in their analysis. Each one corresponds to a different bias Rural areas. Josias Láng-Ritter is one of the researchers in charge of the study and points to the accounts carried out in a specific segment: that of rural population. “For the first time, our study provides evidence that a significant proportion of the rural population could be missing from global population data sets,” he notes. As we say, we are not talking about a few million, but billions. “Depending on the data set used, rural populations have been underestimated between 53% and 84% in the period studied. The results are notable, since these data sets have been used in thousands of studies and have widely supported decision making, but their accuracy has not been systematically evaluated,” comments the researcher. The map shows the location of the 307 rural areas analyzed in the study. The populations reported in the graph were found to be underestimated by between 53% and 84% | Aalto University Biases. Attempts to review this data are not new, but previous research has focused on specific countries or urban areas. Researchers from Aalto University wanted to give a more global picture by comparing the five most used population data sets worldwide. They have used maps that divide the planet into high-resolution grids and have taken something very specific as a reference: resettlement figures from more than 300 rural dam projects in 35 countries. Why this bias of the dams? Because when a dam is builtthe population that lives in the area that will be flooded is relocated and accurate resettlement data is usually available. Comparing that population data from 1975 to 2010, the researchers found that the 2010 maps were more accurate, but still left out between 32% and 77% of the rural population. Between 2015 and 2020 the data sets were updated, but demographers continue to believe that underestimation of the rural population continues to exist and is a problem that persists in all regions of the world. Consequences. And we are talking about a problem whose resolution is complex. According to the researchers, no matter how much the data is reviewed, it is a structural problem. Governments do not have the resources to collect accurate data in these rural regions, there is a huge discrepancy between the real population and that reported on the population maps used to carry out demographic studies and that influences decision making. Average percentage of rural population underestimated (red and orange) and overestimated (blue) | Aalto University And it’s important. Current estimates place 43% of the 8.2 billion inhabitants of the world in rural areas -about 3,526 million people- and if we take into account that it is a percentage that has been underestimated between 53% and 84%, we are not talking about a small population, precisely. And it is essential to know exactly how many we are for a simple reason: the redistribution of resources. No data. The lack of accurate demographic records can affect political decision-making. Ritter gives the example of social decisions. “In many countries, there may not be enough data available at the national level, so they rely on global population maps to support their decisions: Do we need a paved road or a hospital? How much medicine is needed in a specific area? How many people could be affected by natural disasters like earthquakes or floods?” he says. Doing quick math, in the best scenario – that of 53% deviation in the rural population – we would be talking about 1,869 million people who would not have been counted. In the worst case, in that of the 84% not registered, we would talk about 2,962 million people. In the Nature study, they give the example of Paraguay, which in the 2012 census may have left out a quarter of the population. Reviewing the methods. In the team’s analysis, there are countries that fare better than others. They point to Finland as an example of reliable data, even in rural regions, because they began keeping digital records of the population 30 years ago. However, in countries where this thorough digital registration has taken longer to be implemented due to crises of any kind, the differences between the real population and the estimated one can be significant. “To provide rural communities … Read more

“Hell is other people”

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The history of philosophy is full of round phrases that (in theory) synthesize the way of thinking of their authors. Also from ambiguous interpretations or directly wrong. Perhaps the clearest case is made by Jean-Paul Sartre, one of the icons of existentialism. Often his phrase “Hell is other people” It is understood in its most literal and stark sense, as if it were the misanthropic cry of someone tired of living in society. It’s not like that. Sartre himself was in charge of clarifying it. An unexpected hell. In Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) there was a double quality that does not always accompany the great philosophers. A deep look. And an ability to express complex theories in a clear, even engaging way. Hence, he expressed his way of seeing the world both in essays and in novels, scripts and plays. The phrase in question comes from one of the latter, ‘Huis Clos’from 1944, which is usually translated into Spanish as ‘In camera’. In it, the French philosopher presents us with three characters (one man, two women) trapped in a room. The interesting thing comes when we understand that the room in question is hell and the actors we see on stage represent condemned souls. The three of them expect the kind of torture they have read about and seen in pictures, but as time passes they realize that nothing happens. No devils with tridents or flames. No Dantesque scenes. Nothing remotely resembling ‘The Garden of Delights’ of Bosco. “L’enfer, c’est les autres”. Throughout the play, each of the three characters confesses their story and the sins they committed in life, weaving a frustrating love triangle. Towards the end of the performance, one of them, Garcin, utters what is perhaps the most resounding and certainly the most famous phrase, not only of the work itself, but of Sartre’s entire legacy: “I would never have believed it… Remember? The sulfur, the bonfire, the grill… Ah! What a joke. There is no need for grills, hell is the Others.” To be more precise, what Sartre wrote in the original, in French, was “L’enfer, c’est les autres”so there are those who have believed that the translation “Hell is the Other” better fits the author’s intention. Well, it’s pretty clear, isn’t it? Not so much, actually. If literature (art in general) has something good, it is that it can be discussed, but since practically the 1940s, readers and viewers of ‘Huis Clos’ have tended to interpret Garcin’s phrase in a way that is not entirely correct. Not so much because it is erroneous in itself but because it impoverishes the meaning that its author wanted to give it. We know that Sartre was an atheist, so it is not unreasonable to think that when he presents us with a personal hell, without torture, devils or rivers of lava, what he wants to suggest to us is that in reality our authentic condemnation is “the Other”, the obligation to understand each other with the people with whom we share our time, just like the prisoners of ‘Huis Clos’, right? “The executioner is each one for the other two”, comes to say at one point in the play one of the characters. “It has been misunderstood”. The truth is that the above is a simplistic approach. Of course, that is not the meaning that Satre wanted to give to his words. And we know this not because critics or academics dedicated to studying the work and life of the French author have suggested it. No. It was Sartre himself who, in 1964, years after premiering the work, he complained that his misinterpretation. “‘Hell is other people’ has always been misinterpreted. It has been thought that with that phrase I meant that our relationships with others are always poisoned, that they are invariably hellish relationships. But what I really mean is something totally different,” clarifies the philosopher. “I mean that if relationships with another person are distorted, flawed, then that other person can only be hell. Why? Because… when we think about ourselves, when we try to know ourselves… we use the knowledge that others have about us.” And what does that mean exactly? The fundamental thing is not so much how we deal with others or whether this is easy or complicated for us, but how we build our self-understanding. It is best understood with the metaphor of “mirrors”, a tool that is also very present in Sartre’s play. When we want to know what we are like physically, on the outside, it is easy for us: we resort to the reflection that the glass returns to us. But… How do we form our self-knowledge? “When we try to know ourselves, we use the knowledge that others have about us,” Sartre explains to uswho warns however that the ‘reflection’ we receive in that case is not like that of the crystals. “We are judged with the means that others have and have given us. In everything I say about myself, someone else’s judgment always enters. In everything I feel inside, another’s judgment enters. That does not mean at all that one cannot have relationships with other people. It only highlights the fundamental importance of all other people for each of us,” insist the philosopher Trapped characters. The three characters in ‘Huis Clos’ are trapped, but not (alone) in a closed room. Each one of them is a prisoner of the judgment that the rest have made of him in a complex relationship. That is his true punishment, his hell, not the monsters and flames that we see in Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings. Their penance is that the three characters are condemned to define themselves through the “distorting mirrors” of their companions, people who give them a negative reflection and in turn cause the same effect, adds Kirb Woodward.. Sartre himself poses this concept of the tyranny of “being for others” in another way in ‘Being and nothingness’: “By the mere appearance of the Other I see myself in … Read more

Inheritances have become the key for young people to buy a home. In Galicia they are giving them up

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The data is shocking. In a country where inheritances and donations have become the ‘key’ that allows thousands of young people to acquire their own homes, something difficult to consider without that family support, in Galicia a curious phenomenon is being recorded: a record of inheritance renunciations. Just last year almost 4,000 people They said ‘no’ to the possibility of receiving the legacy that their parents, grandparents, uncles or any other relative had left them when they died. Nor is it a new phenomenon Nor is Galicia the only region in which resignations growbut his case is paradigmatic: those 4,000 cases mark a historical maximum. The question is… Why the hell are inheritances rejected? What has happened? That at a time when inheritances have become the “ticket” that allows many young people take the leap from tenants to owners of their own home, a curious record has just been recorded in Galicia: a historical maximum of heirs renouncing their family legacies. The data has advanced it Vigo Lighthouse. In 2025, almost 4,000 people in the region said ‘no’ to the assets left to them by their deceased relatives. The media cites statistics from the Notarial College of Galicia, which also shows that the current volume of resignations far exceeds that of a few years ago. Why do they do it? The big question. As it reflects a recent report of ARAG, Galicia is one of the autonomous communities that offer a more attractive tax framework for inheritances between descendants and spousesat least those that do not exceed one million euros. There are other taxes that come into play, such as municipal capital gains that can be applied to urban properties, but it does not seem that this is the reason that explains the trickle of inheritance renunciations. What is it then? The reality is that there is no single answer. One of the reasons that most influence resignations is (as ironic as it may sound) the inheritances themselves. Its nature. When we think about them, money accumulated in savings accounts, farms, houses and vehicles comes to mind. The reality is that in many cases legacies are ‘poisoned gifts’. What does that mean? That legacy properties don’t just add up. They also ‘subtract’, either because they arrive accompanied by unpaid mortgages, loans or guarantees or simply because the value of the inheritance does not compensate for the cost of assuming it. The latter may sound strange, but it can occur in inheritances from uncles to nephews or between brothers. Bonuses aside, if the value of the legacy is not high, it may not be worth paying capital gains, notary and registrar. Year pure renunciation Resignation in favor of another person (translative) 2011 18,933 800 2012 23,235 777 2013 28,783 689 2014 34,340 741 2015 37,623 756 2016 38,826 687 2017 43,001 776 2018 46,684 826 2019 47,421 818 2020 44,582 745 2021 55,576 1,124 2022 55,509 1,099 2023 56,179 1,117 2024 54,866 1,273 2025 (until October) 46,265 1,041 Are there more reasons? Yes. Like a good part of Spain, Galicia is a territory in full change: its population tends to concentrate and uninhabited areas increase. In practice, this means that part of the inheritances left in the community are simply rural or forest properties with difficult (or no) access, buildings in ruins and plots reduced to their minimum expression in a land characterized precisely by his smallholding. In short, properties of low value, off the market and that may even entail liabilities, such as keep them clean to avoid fires. It is also not unusual for inheritances to include plots whose ownership is fragmented among different family members, sometimes unrelated to each other. Lighthouse explains People also come to the offices of notaries who want to renounce legacies simply because they had no relationship with the deceased or want to avoid family problems that could lead to lawsuits. ccaa RESIGNATIONS IN 2024 RESIGNATIONS IN 2011 Andalusia 10,889 2,443 Aragon 1,229 505 Asturias 2,033 713 Balearics 1,526 728 Canary Islands 2,123 645 Cantabria 712 210 CASTILLA AND LEÓN 3,347 1,358 CASTILLA-LA MANCHA 2,123 592 Catalonia 9,672 4,815 VALENCIAN COMMUNITY 5,502 1,615 Estremadura 1,209 311 Galicia 3,859 1,051 COMMUNITY OF MADRID 5,687 2,050 REGION OF MURCIA 1,752 390 Navarre 744 207 the Basque Country 1959 1,103 Rioja 500 197 Is it just a matter of inheritances? No. Other factors are added to the above, such as the lack of liquidity of the heirs at the time in which they must receive their legacy or simply the increase in inheritances processed in life. In the end, resignations are increasing, but so are agreements between living relatives who anticipate the process to avoid conflicts or benefit from tax advantages. In the background there is also a purely demographic component: as societies like the Galician one age deaths increasewhich in turn leads to more inheritances and the possibility of increased resignations. Is it something new? No. Nor does it only happen in Galicia. A quick search in the newspaper archive shows that rejections of inheritances have been increasing for some time and they are not rare in other autonomous communities either. just a year ago The Country revealed that the proportion of rejected inheritances had risen considerably to reach historic highs in the historical series. Their percentages must be handled with some caution because they are based on statistics in which resignations are equated with renunciants when in reality a legacy can fall on several people who do not accept it. In any case the data of the General Council of Notaries are eloquent: if in 2011 the organization recorded 18,933 resignations (“pure and simple renunciation of inheritance or legitimate”), in 2016 there were already 38,826 and in 2024 (last annual data closed) 54,866. The 2025 results are still partial, but show about 46,300 rejections through October. Why is it so shocking? Partly because of the context. The General Council of Notaries itself published a report at the end of 2025 which shows that “donations … Read more

While specialty cafes are filled with Salomon, more and more people are walking barefoot in the mountains

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It’s Saturday morning in the center of any big city. In specialty coffee shops, among flat whites and sourdough bread, an urban army parades equipped to survive a blizzard in the Alps. We talk about fever Gorpcore: waterproof technical jackets and sneakers trail running ultra-reinforced, designed to devour kilometers of rocks, but today they will only step on tiles and asphalt. However, hundreds of miles from that cafe, on the actual trails where those sneakers should be getting dirty, the exact opposite is happening. We have reached the technological peak of footwear outdoorbut a growing wave of purists, adventurers and elders have decided to take an evolutionary step back: take off their boots and feel the raw earth. Yes, there are people walking barefoot in the mountains. The image of a barefoot mountaineer ceased to be a rarity for hermits and became a global movement. According to GuardianGen Blades, an Australian researcher, says she was hiking the 147-kilometer Namsan Dulle-gil route in South Korea when the terrain changed to a stretch of wet clay (“hwangto”). Neither quick nor lazy, she took off her shoes. He described the feel of the mud oozing between his fingers as “revitalizing, like a massage.” You don’t have to go to Asia to find these devotees of the bare foot. In Australia, Dale Noppers, 37, organizes routes of up to seven hours through the Serpentine National Park stepping on mud, gravel and rocks. He confesses that the experience makes him feel “quite primitive” and assures that, despite the risk of stepping on insects or glass, the soles of his feet are so soft that “it looks like they have had a pedicure.” For Uralla Luscombe-Pedro, 32, who has walked hundreds of kilometers along Australia’s wild coast, feet are “sensory organs.” After weeks of walking like this, he claims to feel like a leaner animal and concludes that our modern concrete human habitat is “strangely boring” in comparison. This is not new, but it has gotten out of control. Europe has been flirting with this idea for decades through the Barfusspark or Barefoot Parks. The German environmental organization NABU documents about 50 of these venues in Germany, with Bad Sobernheim (opened in 1992) being one of the pioneers. An example An example of its magnitude It is the Egestorf parkwhich has almost 3 kilometers and more than 60 stations where visitors step on pine cones, fine sand, spring water and deep mud. But if in Europe it is a recreational activity, in South Korea It’s real institutional madness.. 68.7% of the country’s 243 local governments have ordinances to encourage barefoot hiking. Seongnam City invested 3.45 billion won (about $2.7 million) to build six red clay courts and budgeted another 3.5 billion won by 2024. The private sector not left behind: The Sun Yang Soju liquor company built a 14.5-kilometer runway and donates $800,000 annually for its maintenance. The obsession is such that roads are being built in greenhouses for use in winter. Unfortunately, overcrowding is already causing ecological havoc, such as the degradation of the ecosystem in wetland marshes such as Sorae in Incheon. The key question: why? Defenders of this practice divide their arguments into two large blocks: the mechanics of the body and the “magic” of the earth. On the one hand, mechanical advocates point to physical health. Without shoes, the body constantly adjusts, improving coordination and balance. Small forgotten muscles are activated and the 28 bones, 20 muscles and more than 100 tendons of the foot benefit. Furthermore, when going barefoot on uneven ground, we usually abandon landing with the heel and start stepping with the ball of the foot (metatarsus). This reduces the impact, although it requires 53% more energy, turning the walk into an intense workout. On the other hand, there is the phenomenon of “Earthing”. There are studies that suggest that this direct contact neutralizes free radicals that cause aging, reduces blood viscosity and improves heart rate variability. Attracted by these supposed benefits, patients in Korea claim that the practice has reduced their blood sugar levels, alleviated insomnia and even cured cancer. Science hits the brakes. Podiatrists applaud the freedom of the foot, but with nuances. Dr. George Murley warns in Guardian that you have to treat this transition “almost like a gym session for your feet” and do it progressively. Alejandro Martínez, expert podiatrist, explains in Men’s Health Magazine that “a healthy foot works best when barefoot.” However, when faced with miraculous cures, the medical community pulls out its claws. Dr. Steven Novella, a neurologist at Yale School of Medicine, calls “earthing” pseudoscience that lacks physical sense, denouncing that many of the studies are poorly designed and financed by companies in the sector. Oncologist Ahn Hee-kyung is blunt about the risks: Walking barefoot exposes vulnerable or immunocompromised patients to potentially lethal bacterial infections, such as staphylococcus or tetanus, through small cracks in the skin. As a result, hospitals report an increase in plantar fasciitis and cellulitis from these reckless walks, and many doctors attribute much of the supposed “cures” to a strong placebo effect enhanced by the environment. The alternative that unites worlds: “Barefoot” footwear. For those seeking tetanus-free biomechanics, the industry has perfected footwear barefoot (or respectful). These are shoes with “zero drop” (no heel), a wide last that does not compress the fingers and an extra-thin sole. Brands like Xero Shoes, leguano, Groundies or Freet dominate the niche, and even Zara has launched its own line. Its effectiveness in hostile terrain is proven: Traveler Matouš Vinš managed to climb the 5,000 meters of Mount Kenya in Africa with minimalist footwear, overcoming the challenge without problems while his heavy-booted companions suffered from blisters. Likewise, adventurer Viktorka Hlaváčková claims to be faster on demanding terrain thanks to these shoes, and emphasizes that her feet maintain great blood circulation even below zero. The cushioning paradox. It is revealing that, at a time of greatest hyper-technization in the footwear industry outdoorthe most striking phenomenon is leaving shoes at home. While … Read more

how the hell to census 1.4 billion people

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It doesn’t matter what you do, what sector you work in or the number of people you are in charge of. Your tasks will hardly be as complicated as the one the Government of India has just faced: censusing 1.4 billion people, more than triple of the population of the European Union. The mission is so titanic that it will require more than three million of technicians, a whole legion of censors who will visit around 640,000 villages and almost 10,000 towns and cities. The task is difficult, but it is key if New Delhi wants an updated ‘photo’ of the country that allows it to make decisions adapted to its economy and population. One census to rule them all. India is not just any country. In 2023 the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) estimated which had become the most populous nation on the planet, surpassing China. According to their calculations, that same year the (new) Asian giant far exceeded the 1.4 billion of inhabitants, almost three million more than the country led by Xi Jinping. Now New Delhi has proposed to go further and know in detail how that population is distributed. multiply by 3.1 the EU-wide registry. As? Creating him who, according to some analystswill be the most ambitious census of its kind. One figure: three million. Census of 1.4 billion people is imposing, but that is only one of the many figures that give an idea of ​​how enormous the task will be. There are others just as impressive. For example, a few days ago The New York Times needed that shaping the census will require an investment of around 1.2 billion dollars and mobilizing more than three million technicians. The vast majority will be civil servants and teachers. Such a legion of censors will have to travel from top to bottom of the most populous country in the world. To be more precise, it will be dedicated to covering 36 states and territories, 7,000 subdistricts, more than 9,700 cities and 640,000 villages And how will they do it? The million dollar question. Or rather, the 1.4 billion. It is known that from the outset the Government wants to divide the work into two phases. The first one started this month and will last until September, six months during which the technicians will dedicate themselves to preparing a complete list of homes and inhabitants. Its mission will be to record the size and characteristics of the households and whether, for example, they have access to services such as internet or sanitation. The second phase will start in 2027 and will focus on individuals. It will then be when the censors collect data from each person, documenting names, sexes, ages, marital status or educational and salary level, religion or other characteristics, such as whether they have migrated or have some degree of disability. The work is enormous, but the officials will have a new tool: an app that will make their work doubly easier. Not only will it save them from handling printed paper forms. Citizens themselves will be able to use it to provide their data. Then the censors will only have to check them. Is it something new? No. This is not (far from it) the first census carried out by the Indian authorities. The country has updated its records every 10 years since 1881, when it was still under British rule. I had previously done a try with a questionnaire that would allow you to collect basic indicators. Since then the census has been varying, adding and losing items depending on the concerns of each moment. For example, in 1901 the technicians added a section that sought to clarify what English proficiency existed in the country. A pending task. That tradition sustained since 1881 broke in 2021when COVID prevented updating the 2011 registry. Since then the task has been postponed for different reasons until reaching April 2026. Just because technicians have already started collecting data does not mean that we will know their conclusions soon. CNN precise that the final count will not be made public until next year. Only in the first phase, people who participate in the census must answer just over 30 questions. Why is it important? That the Indian Government is willing to deploy resources, hours of work and millions of dollars to improve its census is no coincidence. The State needs an updated ‘photo’ for such basic issues as designing policies and offering specific services and programs aimed at employment or rural areas. Right now the most detailed image you have is from 15 years agowhich has forced the authorities to use sampling. “This census is crucial: it is the definitive snapshot of India, capturing everything from caste and religion to jobs, education and services. It offers the most complete picture of how people live,” explains to the BBC Ashwini Deshpande, from Ashoka University. His comment slips a couple of keys: the census will not only update the rural, urban and peri-urban map, it will also help decide what parliamentary representation each territory should have and will give an idea of ​​the caste system, one of the points most controversial of the study. Image | Neelakshi Singh (Unsplash) In Xataka | China knows that its population is going to collapse but it already has a long-term plan to solve it. Of course, thanks to AI

There are people obsessed with magnesium as a supplement when the best way is to put it directly into your diet

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We live in the era of biological optimization, where The strange thing without a doubt is not taking dietary supplements from the supermarket such as magnesium, collagen, calcium, various vitamins… Magnesium in particular is sold as an almost magical way of sleep betterreduce anxiety and recover muscle. But the truth is that we are forgetting the most important thing: We have all this in food. The reminder. With so many food supplements (which often do not come cheap), sometimes we forget that we have these nutrients in the supermarket in different presentations. This is something in which Doctor Federica AmatiChief Nutritionist at ZOE Science & Nutrition, has put its finger on the sore spot of the supplement industry: For the vast majority of the population, there are plenty of pills and no food. Why magnesium matters. There is an obsession with taking this mineral, and the reality is that it makes sense because its functions are critical for our body to function correctly. Its fundamental role in many metabolic reactions of the body makes it essential for human survival, since without magnesium we would literally be extinct. And it is no wonder, because beyond being used to prevent cramps, it has important functions in energy production, DNA synthesis, metabolic control such as glucose levels, and also structural function by allowing bone to develop. Given its importance, the consumer logic seems simple: “If it’s so important, the more you take, the better”. But this is where science has to put the brakes on because a large amount does not always equal better performance. The best foods. One of the positions that we can have on the table right now is that magnesium supplements (and even others) are not necessary, unless it is known that there is a deficit. All this because it has a big problem: they are isolated. The problem with supplements is that they are isolated. NIH Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) emphasizes that the food matrix It is irreplaceable. When you get magnesium from an almond or spinach, you’re not just ingesting the mineral, you’re getting fiber, phytochemicals, and other micronutrients that work together and that no pill can fully replicate. The daily doses. The official recommendations today indicate that the minimum levels of magnesium They are not unattainablesince for adult men between 400 and 420 mg per day are needed, while for women between 310 to 320 mg per day is sufficient. Low figures mean that they cannot be easily achieved with food by adjusting the shopping list without going to the pharmacy. Where can it be found. If the goal is to reach 400 mg daily, the strategy is not to look for supplemented foods, but to go back to the basics. In this case, science points because the food where we have the greatest amount of magnesium are seeds and nuts, where we find almonds, cashews and especially pumpkin and chia seeds. But in addition, it should also be noted that green leafy vegetables such as spinach or chard have chlorophyll in their composition, which also acts as a highly coveted magnesium reserve. All this without forgetting legumes and whole grains. Who needs supplements. Logically, they have a site, but it is by no means a universal recommendation for everyone who may have their requirements met with the diet. According to the ODS, there are different groups of people who may require this supplementation (under medical supervision). These are the following: Gastrointestinal disease such as celiac disease where nutrient absorption is compromised. Type 2 diabetes, since its pathophysiology causes a decrease in magnesium. Chronic alcohol consumption. Elderly people where absorption is naturally decreased. In these specific cases, the evidence indicates that supplementation can help improve parameters such as sleep quality or anxiety, but because they have an absorption problem. A previous visit to the doctor. Before starting supplementation of any type, it is best to go to your primary care doctor to verify in a blood test the nutritional deficiencies that you want to counteract. And our body does not store these minerals, meaning that anything taken in excess has no effect whatsoever. In Xataka | Magnesium, creatine, collagen: we are taking supplements above what science believes is useful In Xataka | Which dietary supplements really work and which don’t, in a great graph A version of this article was published in January 2026.

There are people so extremely competitive in ‘Tetris’ that they are literally breaking the game

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He ‘Tetris‘ for NES has been in circulation for 35 years. Most players who try this or any of the other home versions still operate it with their thumbs, like in 1989. But in the competitive scene (where the NES port is the most common version), however, the grip of the Nintendo controller is different. And it continues to evolve: for a few years now a new technique has been making it possible for the game’s classic records to be pulverized one after another. So much so that the first human to “beat” ‘Tetris’ did so with this new technique. ‘Tetris’: The End. The NES ‘Tetris’, released in the United States in 1989, has an ending. More or less: upon reaching level 29, the falling speed of the pieces doubles so abruptly that it is considered impossible to react in time to rotate and move them. The score counter also freezes when it reaches 999,999 (the so-called maxout). It’s not exactly impossible to overcome, but it’s difficult enough that it’s always been considered that way. For years, it was considered the ceiling of the game The best players in the world competed in the annual Classic Tetris World Championship (CTWC) with the goal of accumulating as many points as possible before level 29 stopped them. That was the way to determine a winner: maximum points before level 29. The considered best player in the world was Jonas Neubauer, with seven titles in nine consecutive finals. The controller was held as it has always been done, pressed at the speed that human thumbs would allow, and level 29 was the limit. DAS: the lifelong technique. DAS is the acronym for Delayed Auto Shift and it is the traditional way of playing. This is the standard behavior of the game when the D-pad is held down: although the pieces fall at maximum speed, there is a short delay before the piece begins to move, and that speed is around 10 Hz (ten moves per second). Competitive players who use the DAS technique do not simply hold the button down: they have perfected the pressure times to take advantage of that delay and throw pieces to the side with maximum efficiency. Between 2010 and 2017, the early years of CTWC, DAS players dominated the scene, but the deadly level 29 held everyone back equally. However, as we will see, this form of control has become outdated although today, the tournament has created its own category (the DAS Jonas Cup) to preserve this technique within the official competition. A sign that it is a classic wood technique, but it also indicates to what extent it has been displaced by more modern ones. Hypertapping is coming. This consensus was broken in 2011. Thor Aackerlund demonstrated that level 29 could be overcome with a different technique: instead of holding down the D-pad to take advantage of the delay of each piece, he pressed the controller repetitively and very quickly, pressing the D-pad at full speed. He hypertappingas this technique is known, allows the pieces to move at about 12 Hz, bypassing the DAS delay. Aackerlund thus reached level 30, and the community adopted the technique immediately. Problems and glory of hypertapping. Without a doubt, the big problem with the technique is how physically demanding it is: counterintuitive gripping positions on the controller, continuous muscular effort and, therefore, a real risk of injury. In 2018, 16-year-old Joseph Saelee defeated seven-time world champion Neubauer in the CTWC final using hypertapping. The effect was immediate: in a very short time, the hypertappers They took the records to levels that no one had reached: Saelee reached level 31 in 2018, and for 2020 the best hypertappers They had reached level 38. The ceiling was rising, but it was still a ceiling. The drummer. In November 2020, Christopher Martinez designed a new technique. Instead of pressing one finger on the pad at full speed, he placed one static finger on top of the pad and tapped the back of the controller with the others. When pressing from the bottom up, it was the crosshead that pressed the finger, so to speak. The result was up to 30 beats per second, the technical limit allowed by the framerate 60 Hz of the NES. Or put another way: double what the hypertapping faster. Martinez was inspired by techniques of tapping fast developed by speedrunners. Justin Yu, CTWC 2023 champion, described the principle as “you don’t have to use a single muscle; you use all your fingers to push the controller into your hand.” The ergonomic advantage is important: the hypertapping exhausts, but the rolling It distributes the effort between several fingers, in a way that the players themselves have compared to the way in which pianists and drummers optimize the effort of their arms and hands to reach high speeds. And it’s completely legal in tournaments. Stratospheric levels. The breaking of the invisible ceiling that until the arrival of the hypertapping had been at level 29 moved on. In August 2022, the player EricICX reached level 138, where the colors of the pieces are corrupted due to a bug in the original code: the developers had never planned for anyone to get that far. And then, Willis Gibson, known online as Blue Scuti, only 13 years old and with two years of experience playing ‘Tetris’, reached level 157 in a 38-minute session and the game crashed. He became the first person to “beat” the NES game. The post-rolling era. He rolling It is also changing how competitive players train. Instead of starting from level 1, they work directly from level 29 (which was previously the limit), because if you master the fastest level as your usual starting point, the previous ones lose all difficulty. CTWC co-founder states that, possibly in a few years all the finalists will reach level 28 with the score at the maximum and continue up to 50 without much difficulty. The last frontier. Level 255 was the theoretical … Read more

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