people

We thought we were 8,000 million people throughout the planet. Until some researchers began to make numbers

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In November 2022, the UN celebrated that we were already 8,000 million 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, irremediably, Start falling. But … to what extent can we trust those accounts? It is something that takes time on the table, and now a study It arrives to add more spicy when we affirmed that we have been making it counting. So much that we have left several hundred million people along the way. Can we trust the numbers? “Calculating the number of people on the planet is an inaccurate science.” That was the comment of demographer Jakub Bijak a BBC In the middle of last year, just when the Study of world population perspectives. Something scientific is something exact, but the researcher also commented that the only thing that can be sure when predicting population figures is of the lack of certainty. That, eye, does not mean that demographers get the figures out of nowhere. “It is something difficult based on our experience, knowledge and each piece of information we have,” said Toshiko Kanera, an expert in demographic forecasts. The demographers drink from the data and trends of each country since 1950, but … what if it had not been well told? We are missing millions. In a new study published in Natureresearchers from the University of Aalto in Finland show how the data sets that demographers manage to “deep and systematic” the population figures worldwide. 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 corresponds to a different bias The rural areas. Josias Láng-Rritter is one of the investigators in charge of the study and points to the accounts made in a specific segment: that of the rural population. “For the first time, our study provides evidence that a significant proportion of the rural population could be absent in the data sets of the global population,” he says. As we say, we don’t talk about a few million, but thousands of millions. “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 precision has not been systematically evaluated,” says the researcher. The map shows the location of the 307 rural areas analyzed in the study. It was found that the populations reported in the graph were underestimated between 53% and 84% | University of Aalto Biases. Attempts to review these data are not new, but previous investigations have focused on specific countries or urban areas. The researchers at the University of Aalto have wanted to take a more global photo when comparing the five most used population data sets worldwide. They have used maps that divide the planet into high resolution grids and have taken as a very concrete reference: the resettlement figures of more than 300 rural dams projects in 35 countries. Why this dam bias? Because When a dam is builtthe population that lives in the area that will be flooded is relocated and precise resettlement data is usually had. When comparing this population data from 1975 to 2010, the researchers found that the 2010 maps were more precise, but still omitted between 32% and 77% of the rural population. Between 2015 and 2020 the data sets were updated, but the demographers continue to consider that the 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 researchers, no matter how much the data is reviewed, it is a structural problem. Governments do not have the resources to collect precise data in these rural regions, there is a huge discrepancy between the real population and the one reported in the population maps that are used to carry out demographic studies and that influences decision making. Average percentage of rural population estimated down (red and orange) and overestimated (blue) | University of Aalto And it is important. Current estimates place 43% of 8,200 million World inhabitants in rural areas -And 3,526 million people- and if we take into account that it is a percentage that has underestimated between 53% and 84%, we are not talking about little 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 precise demographic records can affect political decision making. Ritter sets the example of social decisions. “In many countries, there may not be enough available data at the national level, so they depend on the global population maps to support their decisions: do we need an asphalted road or a hospital? How much medicine is needed in a specific area? How many people could be affected by natural disasters such as earthquakes or floods?” Making quick accounts, in the best scenario – the 53% deviation in the rural population – we would talk about 1,869 million people who would not have counted. In the worst case, in the 84% not registered, we would talk about 2,962 million people. In Nature’s study, they put an example Paraguay, which in the 2012 census may have left out a quarter of the population. Reviewing the methods. In the analysis of the team, there are countries that come out better than others. They put Finland as an example of reliable data, even in rural regions, because they began bringing digital records of the population 30 years ago. However, in countries in which this conscientious digital registry has taken longer to be implemented due to crisis of any kind, … Read more

We have many stereotypes about the personality of intelligent people. And they have little validity according to science

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Literature, cinema and television have created a series of stereotypes, not always consistent, that we associate with intelligent people. From the clueless genius to the arrogant intellectual, these clichés are often intermingled with reality. In part because of the complexity of matter and partly due to the existence of this type of preconceived ideas, studying the link between cognitive abilities and personality traits is especially complicated. So what do we know about the relationship? One of the greatest studies in the field was carried out by two researchers at the University of Minnesota. It is a meta -analysis published in 2023 and that analyzed more than a thousand studies on the subject. The results of this analysis do not offer us a list of personality traits that we can associate with intelligence, but illustrates a complex network of connections between cognitive abilities and personality traits. Complex relationships. Something that should not be especially strange if we take into account how difficult it is to define intelligence. Some experts talk about multiple types of intelligence. The study refers to cognitive skills, and is not limited to These eight either nine typesbut includes a total of 97 skills. Study study. The team studied the relationship between these 97 skills and 79 personality traits. He did it through a review of scientific literature and subsequent meta -analysis. That is, they conducted a quantitative study from a total of 1,325 previous studies. The details of the process and the results can be consulted In an article In the magazine Psychological and Cognitive Sciences of the US National Academy of Sciences. A graphic summary of the results was also published in the form of Interactive tool on-line. Breaking stereotypes. Personality features are often simplified in “Big Five“O Five great features: openness, scrupulity or consciousness, extraversion, affability and neuroticism. The team indicates to what extent these traits are positively or negatively linked to cognitive skills. For example indicate that facets related to neuroticism were negatively correlated with most cognitive skills. This would imply that the cliche “melancholic and depressive” scientist is not exactly successful. On the opposite side, extroversion and scrupulity or consciousness were positively linked to a wide range of cognitive skills. Another detail observed by the study is that, although the affability as a whole was not associated or negatively with intelligence, some related features, such as compassion were linked to some analyzed skills. What makes us intelligent. Knowing what traits are most linked to which capabilities we will surely help us better or more easily identify intelligent people due to the enormous complexity of these interactions. Adapt our personality to what is observed in studies like this is not going to make us smarter. However, it can help us understand how these features of our brains evolved. In Xataka | The myth of the old Cascarrabias: age does not make us more irritable, rather on the contrary Image | Weermeijer Robina

The people who defend that the Internet is changing the brain forever

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Our brain is a constantly change organ. It changes throughout our life not only as a result of our growth and aging, also as a consequence of daily activities, from exercise to reading, through sleep and other diverse actions. Of course, the time we spend in front of the screens is that of a computer or that of our mobile, They also affect our brain. We associate these changes to problems such as the loss of our capacity for attention or the appearance of addictive behaviors associated for example to the use of social networks. Knowing how our brain interacts with the digital world in the era of social networks is a key step to improve our well -being in this new context, understanding the magnitude of problems as those mentioned above and also trying to find the positive side of these interactions. That is why this is a field of great interest for research. We said before our brain is an organ that does not stop changing. These changes represent the very essence of learning (and much more). To the ability of the brain to transform and reconfigure, even at the physiological level, in response to external stimuli we call it neuroplasticity. This is explained by Loles Villalobos Tornero, of the Department of Experimental Psychology Cognitive processes and speech therapy of the Complutense University of Madrid, In an article in The conversation. “We call neuroplasticity to the extraordinary capacity of our thinking body to transform and functionally and physically reconfigure its structure in response to environmental stimuli, behavioral experiences or cognitive demands. In short, to the situations we live. This is mainly possible thanks to the creation and control of the number of neurons, the migration of these nerve cells and the formation of new connections, ”says Villalobos Tornero In your piece. What our brain does is, to some extent, improve neuronal connections between neurons that tend to activate in unison, which Facilitate synapses Among these, that is, the act of transmitting activity from one neuron to another. These changes, as the expert points out, affect the structure of neural networks. There are two recurring examples when we talk about neuroplasticity: musicians and taxi drivers. Training markedly specialized in these unions translates into physiological changes in the brains of these people. In a case in rhythmic and harmonic learning, as well as in the skill required to touch an instrument; In the second, in the spatial aspect. In Your article in The conversationVillalobos Tornero also speaks of the importance of neuroplasticity in another context, that of brain lesions. When a brain injury prevents the brain from continuing to develop a task, the brain reconfigures its activity to be able to develop the same task by resorting to the whole areas of the organ. Such is the adaptive capacity of our brain. It is not to surprise that yes, that the use of current digital tools, Internet, smartphones and social networks have the ability to change our brain. The question of how and to what extent It is what has been intrigued by experts in brain and cognition for years. To understand how we must still introduce another concept. The ability of our brain to adapt to new amazing situations, we pointed out. More if we take into account that this organ did not evolve to follow hyperlinks but for tasks such as looking for food and escaping predators. If we want to understand how the brain adapts to something so far from the functions for which it evolved, we must also take into account the idea of ​​the Cortical co -optation. The Cortical co -optation Something like the “recycling of brain areas” can be seen, which in origin would have evolved to develop certain functions to be able to assimilate new skills, explains Lucia Amoruso, a researcher at the BCBL (Basque Center on Cognition Brain and Language). “A classic example is (The reading and writing). From an evolutionary point of view, human beings are not born with a specific brain module for these skills, ”explains the researcher. “However, throughout development, The “recycling” brain previously specialized in the recognition of objects and faces (…) to allow the acquisition of literacy. ” For Amoruso, the current brain transformation is similar, with our brain having to adapt to different stimuli, “fast, dynamic and fragmented.” Decades studying The year 2010, when social networks were in full explosion, saw the publication of two books on the subject. In a review For the magazine NatureDaphne Bavelier and Shawn Green paid attention to the fact that, despite being both books based on scientific knowledge in the field, their respective authors reached diametrically opposite conclusions. Studies such as those that have already been showing us, through magnetic resonances, which Our active brain when it sails Online a neuronal network greater than the one in operation when he simply reads. Something that is not at all surprising, after all navigate Internet requires greater activity than more passive reading. Greater neuronal networks are activated is indicative that the footprint in our brain of our virtual activity could be greater than the one left by the “conventional” reading. Interestingly, neuronal activation in Internet searches was also greater among people with some knowledge of the digital environment, in contrast to people less familiar with the digital environment. Nick Biltton and Nicholas Car, the authors of the books, interpret this same fact in different ways. If for Biltton this is a learning sign; Carr recalled that the use of a greater number of neurons does not necessarily imply an improvement in our brain processes. Drawing generalizable conclusions in this context is difficult. But more than two decades have passed since 2010 and the number of studies analyzing this topic has expanded. In 2019, a team of researchers published a review of the scientific literature that addressed the issue in order to summarize the “state of science” regarding this issue. The details of his analysis were Published as an article In the … Read more

There are people who never know when to leave a series. Someone has investigated the exact moment to do so

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It has all the meaning of the world that we discuss and reflect tirelessly on what point the series spoils, how the series are not eternal and what methods we can find to anticipate the tragic moment in which our favorite series ceases to be what it was. After all, we invest a lot of time in them: They are hours and hours of our free time, and when they stop liking ourselves, we continue looking for their company in the hope that they will do it again. Sometimes it happens, sometimes not. Daniel Parris’s Newsletter Significant Star It is dedicated to answering these types of questions using thousands of data collected in databases of the most varied. ¿When we stop finding new music? ¿What classic films endure the passage of time? ¿They die more famous now than before? And above all, the essential:People hate as much as it looks like Coldplay? (In this case I can speak for me, and no statistics are needed). In this line of transcendental questions that can be answered with statistics (A fan of statistics assures us, but that’s another issue), it’s’How many episodes of a series have to endure before stopping seeing it?‘Before continuing, it would be necessary to clarify that these data start from the logical fallacy of thinking that a note in IMDB is the mother of the lamb, and a series (or episode) that suspends in IMDB is effectively bad, when there are thousands of variants (Review Bombicscult series to which the well-mal dichotomy does not feel good or, punch, that many times people are wrong) that question this reasoning. But let’s start from there. The average grade as a canon Parris calculations take, for example, to calculate the average grade of all the episodes of a series. Puts the example of ‘Friends‘, which has an average (quite high) note of 8.34. We can say that this is the intermediate quality point: an episode with more note that will have a greater quality than the majority, with less that quality will be lower. There are series whose first episodes are already around this average note (‘Game of Thrones‘, for example), in other cases the series take to find that average note. The aforementioned ‘Friends’, for example, It does not reach that 8.34 to the seventh episode. Well: Parris calculation consists in taking all IMDB series and Compare the note of each episode with this average grade, and the result is a differential. Most of the series, it seems to be, take six or seven episodes to achieve that average quality. It is clearly appreciated in this graphic Image: Stant significant Is it a lot? Is little? Well, it is a considerable amount of hours, but Parris overlooks a very complicated topic to quantify: the last episodes of a series are better/more interesting/more exciting than the former because … This is how stories work! The first episodes always serve to prepare the way and then have interest. The data we can get from this is: do not trust a statesman to make cultural criticism. But let’s continue. After all, as Parris says, the verySeinfeld‘It took 16 episodes in find your Mojo. How much before I take me? But you can go further, and expand the photo: what if we go to the seasons? Practically All series have a time when interest begins to declinewhere they have been elongated beyond the reasonable, where everything that could be counted has been counted and we entered into argumentary arches that are repeated, characters that no longer have grace, loss of originality, skacuartos spirit and other phenomena that can come to load the memory of a series in its entirety because, again Paradigmatic case of ‘Game of Thrones’ It appears, many times from the end is what people remember the most. Let’s look at this new picture: Image: Stant significant Again using that average note as the base of the quality of a series, we have to in most series there is a change between the fifth and sixth season. From there there is no back. Of course, There are variables: In ‘Game of Thrones’ the greatest fall in the valuations with respect to the first is the eighth season, in ‘House of Cards’ the sixth and in ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ the fourth. They are not necessarily the last seasons, but the most disappointing season. There is no clear rule, but a more or less immutable truth: there is no series that can be prolonged indefinitely. Can conclusions based on mathematics from here be drawn? Well yes and no: It seems more or less reasonable to think that no series can survive foreverbut there are some that after a great quality descent recover something from its initial attraction. The advice that can be removed from this data is: there is no unique solution and applicable to all series, but in general, when you start seeing a decline in quality, leave it. In very, very rare occasions things will be like in that wonderful episode eight of the first season. Header | Warner In Xataka | The 17 best streaming series of 2024 and where to see them

Eggs are so expensive in the United States that there are people opting for a desperate solution: rent chickens

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If you have bought eggs these last days, surely there is something that has caught your attention. The price has increased, 25% in some casesand curiously its price is a Good economic thermometer. An increase in the price of eggs affects sectors such as hospitality, pastry, bakery or precooked products, and in the United States escalation The price of eggs is nonsense. And given that crisis of the eggs, there are those who opt for what before it could seem crazy: the rental of chickens. Egg-gate. There are various factors that have led to this situation. One of them is long: a gradual decrease in egg productionbut the problem that has triggered the current situation has a name and surname: Aviar flu. The North American country has been suffering a serious epidemic for months that has left us as discouraging news as the first Mild infections in humans or the First pig spread. Although it is affecting more in the US, other countries, such as Spain, started the year Taking measures To stop an epidemic. 2025 complicated. The avian flu outbreak considerably affected eggs in the country because they have had to sacrifice Millions of laying hens, reducing the offer of eggs in the market and, of course, increasing their price. As if this were not enough, the crisis is not expected to be resolved soon. The United States Department of Agriculture esteem that the price climb will continue during the next months, with increases of more than 40% in the remainder of 2025. Such is the impact that there are already restaurants that begin to charge supplements in their dishes if they carry egg. Solutions. Given the needs and crises, there are those who turn on the bulb. In this case, to whom they have thought about a “And if we set up a laying chickens rental service?” One of those companies is Rent the chickn And, really, the situation is not new. It has been operational for several years And what he offered was the possibility of “renting” chickens and poultry to offer therapies in care centers for elderly or for educational purposes for classrooms. But as if it were a Diaper company in Japanwhere they have seen business is in the possibility of offering a complete package to have chickens to put the breakfast eggs. Chicknbuster. The company does not operate in all states, but in which it is present it offers a service consisting of: Portable chicken coop with two or four chickens that already put eggs and equipped with everything necessary. Sufficient food and advice on their care. And it would be, to produce already to have even a dozen eggs a week with a couple of specimens. Jenn Tompkins is the co -founder of the company and, recently, commented They are living a high season in the business. He price of renting the chickens? About 600 for the kit and two chickens, about 800 for four chickens. And the corresponding food, of course. And it also varies depending on the area and if it is more or less remote … and has a surcharge of 25 dollars per additional week. Compensate? Let’s say that the price of the dozen reaches five stable dollars (it is already at a higher price in some places, but to have a fixed amount). In that case, if they put 12 eggs a week, there are 312 eggs in those six months, united in 26 dozen. Five dollars the dozen, there are $ 130. The accounts do not come out, there is a situation that can compensate: there are establishments that exhaust cargoes in ten minutes. As if it were toilet paper or yeast in pandemicthere is messages In social networks that show that in some shops the eggs fly, so, with your chickens at home, you would not have that problem. Now, seen that there are about 600 dollars for rent for six months, perhaps what compensates is to invest first in a chicken coop and animals … and enjoy the morning eggs without the Caduque rental. Beyond all this, the amazing thing is that all this It arose 10 years ago with a night search on Google of “crazy business ideas.” Image | Rent the chickn In Xataka | In Alicante there is a city invaded by chickens. So you have prepared a plan of 26,000 euros to get rid of them

We already know what people are really using at work: to translate texts

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One of the main debates of the future of AI is Know the real impact of this new technology in the workplace. The forecasts of the World Economic Forum collected In your report ‘Future of Jobs Report 2025’, estimates that the deployment of AI at work will displace 92 million jobs and generate 170 million new positions. Many of these profiles still do not exist or They are starting to form. A recent one study of Infojobs points out that one in three employees in Spain is already using the work, although the main use made of it Google already offered it A decade ago: translate. Increasingly and better. In a survey conducted to 1,040 people only 32% acknowledged using AI in some way In your job. Of this 32%, only 6% did it regularly, and 26% used it occasionally. This percentage of use has increased with respect to the data of 2023, where only 23% I acknowledged using it. The forecast is that, in the face of 2025, the percentage of employees who use AI ascend up to 34%, increasing mainly in those who usually use it. On the opposite side, there are still 46% who know no artificial intelligence tool or model, nor use it in your workwhile 22% say they know them, but use them in their work environment. At the moment, it only replaces Google. Those employees who have recognized the AI ​​usually use in their work, has acknowledged using it in 58% to perform automatic document translations. It is followed by the use of chatbots such as Chatgpt used in text and consultation analysis in 37% of cases. The Image generation with AI (9%), software development and programming assistance (6%) or design (5%) still occupies a reduced use percentage. Facing 2025, little variation is expected in the use given to AI tools, where an increase in the use of chatbots is expected, given the increase in the capacity of the last versions of Chatgpt, Claudeeither Deepseekthat have been presented recently. Without training, there is no ia. The report ‘From potential to Profit: CLOSING THE AI IMPACT GAP‘Prepared by the consulting firm Boston Consulting Group, indicates that 75% of executives and management positions consider AI as a strategic priority In 2025. However, the Infojobs report reveals that only 20% of employees declared to use the work usually has received specific training for its use. Of the total number of employees that the AI ​​uses in their job, 40% ensure that they have received information (not training) or plans to receive it in the next six months. Of these, 14% have already carried out it, while 26% will do so in the future. 60% of the participants in this study declare that they have neither received information nor plans to receive it in the future. Young man with studies. The Infojobs report reveals an important gap, both gender, education and age range in the use of AI for work. Men, with 59%, use artificial intelligence more, while only 41% of women use it. By age segment, it is those under 35 who have best incorporated it to their day to day, with 62% compared to 38% of those over 35. It also highlights 76% of employees with university studies that usually use it, of which 62% do so from the office itself, while only 38% of those who telework use it usually. In Xataka | The AI ​​race has promoted a new professional profile that is raffling companies: AI engineer Image | Pexels (Anna Shvets)

There are people putting toilet paper in the fridge. What does science say about the trick to eliminate bad odors

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If one day we open our fridge and encounter A roll of toilet paper insidewe might think that we live with a very clueless person who has confused the fridge with the bathroom closet. We would probably be wrong: There is a reason To put toilet paper in the fridge. The question is whether it is a good idea. The first question that comes to mind is: why? What is sought with this strange idea is to reduce the bad odors that are sometimes presented in our fridge. The “trick” also promises to extend the life of our food and even save energy consumption. Ok and work? Although we have not tested the method, the toilet paper could help us Eliminate bad odors from our fridge. Although there are some issues to consider to go for our paper rolls. The logic behind is that the toilet paper can absorb moisture (this paper is absorbent so it is capable of collecting environmental humidity by dehumidifier) ​​and with it the bad smell of our fridge. It would also help to preserve food better, reducing the rhythm to which they spoil and avoid passing that emit new bad odors. Insert paper into the fridge is one of the “tricks” that he proposes The Food Security Service of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), but not as a way of maintenance but as a way of ending persistent odors in our fridge. In an article dedicated to how to eliminate bad odors from the fridge, the service suggests filling our fridge of Rolled newspaperthen close the door and leave it like this for several days. After taking out the paper, they recommend cleaning the fridge with water and vinegar. Using newspaper has the advantage that this will be a role that will be discarded equally, but it is also an increasingly weird paper to find in our homes. If we use toilet paper we must avoid using paper that we have had stored in the bathroom outside its wrapping since it will have been accumulating moisture and will be more “loaded” from it. Avoiding bad odors It should be noted that the use of paper, whether newspaper or hygienic, is not the first method suggested by the USDA on its page as a way to eliminate bad odors from our fridge. The first thing to do in these cases is to eliminate any food spoiled that could be causing bad smell. Then, remove all the trays and drawers from the fridge and clean them with soap and water. Then we can give them a bath with a “sanitary solution” making a tablespoon of bleach not aromatized in 3.5 liters of water. Also use this solution to clean the interior of the fridge. After that we must leave the appliance open for a quarter of an hour. Appliances manufacturers are also A good source of information when looking for tricks that allow us to improve our use of the devices that manufacture. These methods include several cleaning products, we must be aware of Do not mix them. For example, mixing bicarbonate and vinegar will cause the different levels of acidity of the products to be annulled since vinegar is acid, while bicarbonate is a base. Mix vinegar and bleach, on the other hand, It is a risk to our health since the mixture will release harmful gases. Interestingly, this “trick” could help us save energy. Every time we open the door of the fridge we can generate air currents that introduce warm air from abroad into the fridge. When we close the door, the fridge must renounce this air, spending more energy. The more full the fridge is, the less air it can be exchanged with the outside, so a fridge fills less energy. If we put a roll of toilet paper (as if we put a brick), the fridge will cool it once alone, and not as many times as we open and close the door. This “trick” can be useful in very specific contexts, if for example we have our refrigerator halfway fill more or less constantly. In Xataka | The International Space Station receives its first space refrigerators: with them they hope to improve the astronaut diet Image | Xataka with Gemini

There are people convinced that in 2030 we will achieve immortality. These are your arguments

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Live more and live better, but above all live more. Longevity is the obsession of many, including some “futurologists” who believe that eternal life (understood as the end of deaths due to natural cause) is close. Objective 2029. As close as This same decade. Before even its end, to be exact. That is the forecast of Google and “futuristic” Ray Kurzweil’s exingender. This was what I pointed out a few months ago In an interview For the company Bessemer Venture Partners. This raises some doubts, as this arguments based on this notion and if we are close to getting out of death indefinitely. In the interview, Kurzweil expressed it as follows: “Science advances and is healing several diseases. You are receiving on average about four months a year (…) however, scientific research is also in an exponential curve. By 2029, you will have received a whole year account. So you lose a year, but you receive a year back. ” “Exhaust speed ”. Kurzweil’s idea revolves around Longevity escape speed concept. In physics, the exhaust speed is a speed that allows us to counteract the gravitational pull of a body and boost away from it thanks to the simple inertia. In this context, the escape speed means something different, which does not lead us to escape something physical but to get away from death from death. The idea is simple, and that is that the increase in life expectancy grows exponentially until it reaches a point where this life expectancy increases in more than a year. Thanks to advances in medicine and other fields, life expectancy has been significantly increasing throughout the world, but, at least for now, indefinitely prolong our life expectancy looks like a simple chimera. Arguments For a short time, if we trust the Kurzweil arguments. The main argument is the rapid advance of contemporary medicine. Medical advances have allowed us to overcome numerous infectious diseases through treatments and vaccines. Kurzweil himself puts as an example the speed with which the Covid vaccine (obviating perhaps the titanic development effort, which was also based on previous works in immunization and genetic). However, it is also true that we continue advancing a lot in the fight against diseases such as cancers. We are even close to Replicate technology which gave us the Covid vaccine in the fight against some tumors. On the other hand, diseases closely linked to age such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson continue to be a challenge for scientists who still seek to understand the causes of these disorders to combat them effectively. Not just health. The increase in life expectancy is not only limited to the health field. Our world is safer than it was in the past. Transport is safer than a few decades ago, less frequent wars, and violent crimes occur to a lesser extent. These factors have also contributed to the increase in life expectancy and is likely (not sure) to continue doing it in the future. Not so fast. There are those who believe that we will reach the exhaust speed soon without reaching Kurzweil’s optimism. For example, George Church, a genetic expert at Harvard University that indicated that, perhaps throughout our lives, we can reach this evolutionary point. A little more optimistic than Church, Aubrey de Gray, president of the Longevity Escape Velocity Foundation, proposes that it will be throughout the 2030s when we reach it. Will it arrive? There are many reasons to be skeptics, not only with the ambitious Kurzweil agenda, but with the very concept of escape speed of longevity. As we indicated above, there are reasons for some skepticism. For example, the fact that advances in a disease do not imply advances in others. Even cancer is so varied that it implies that, while some are perfectly treatable, others still represent a huge threat to our life. Infectious diseases represent another stumbling block: although we had advanced a lot in the creation of vaccines and antibiotics, the latter are losing efficacy by leaps and bounds before the arrival of the “superbacteria.” Neurodegenerative diseases also remind us that not only just dodge death, while we do not improve our quality of life in the last stages of our life, these improvements will be little. In Xataka | We have been looking for the secrets of longevity. We have found one in the RNA of some worms Image | Harli Marten

People are using AI on Tiktok to “travel in time” to some of the greatest catastrophes in history

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Fever for the past (not because of history in its purest form, but for the sensations that were lived in other times) is increasingly strong, and now that the Millennials They are starting to experiment What gene x has been suffering in their flesh for years (nostalgia for what has been lived and not lived since you get up until you go to bed), it was only a matter of time that tools such as AI were added to fashion. Only this time nostalgia leads us to moments when technology (not already AI, but directly the electric current) had not invented, and gives rise to Trends how to live in the first person the black plague. What happened, happened. Dawn in Pompeya The day of the eruption of Vesubio, Work in Chernobyl In 1986 or be one of the witchcraft In the 17th century Salem are some of the historical hits of the videos generated by @timetravellerpovTiktok user who already has 472,000 followers and eight million ‘like’ accumulated in their creations, despite the short life of the account, which began at the beginning of the year. Of course, he already takes advantage of his fame to announce Video creation courses for AI similar to yours. The other face of the story. The most curious thing about the account is that not only publishes videos of historical facts that we cannot have lived for obvious reasons, but much more everyday experiences and that have nothing of historical transcendence (although emotional): being A teenager from the eightiesa small child In Great Britain of the Two Miles Or the most curious of all, for the recent facts: recall in the first person (like all these videos) what was Covid confinementwhich undoubtedly any user of the account will have recent. Millions of people in misfortunes. Of course, these are not the most visited videos, but the very viralized Chernobyl and The black plaguewith 32 and 24 million reproductions, which far exceed the most common between 1 and 3 million of the rest of the channel videos. It is clear that users want to experience unattainable misfortunes of the near or remote past, almost in tourist planand they begin to demonstrate with the comments of the videos, which usually have a tone close to “calm, which was a moment running for my life in Pompeii.” The problem of historical fidelity. It is clear that the primary objective of these accounts is entertainment, and not reflect in a reliable way what the past was. Some historian has already pointed out some gazapos of these videos (especially in their imitators): in one of the many on the black plague, houses with architecture other than the real or train tracks appear, something impossible in the fourteenth century. Others such as Pompeya favor the spectacular when we have records that speak of a different experience. The danger of these videos, beyond that they can spread erroneous visions, is in the malicious use: “People could manipulate the story; (…) and create a video that supports the denialists of the Holocaust,” says historian Amy Boyington For BBC. Imitors sprout. Of course, success has been born a good number of imitators, all more rough and less careful than @timetravellerpov, which despite its factual mistakes has more careful animations and more realistic setting, and flees (relatively) from the morbidity. They are accounts like @Chron0.viewwho has dared to portray crazy things such as Kennedy’s murder from the president’s point of view or 11-S attacks from within the Twin Towers. Some, like @the_pov_lab It exceeds the original account and almost all, of course, have their own version of life during the black plague. Header | @timetravellerpov In Xataka | The Humane Ai Pin debacle is a problem for the industry: who will trust a pot now

Every day thousands of people make fun without knowing about an empire when they have breakfast. THE RESPONSIBLE: THE COUPASAN

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If something has demonstrated over the centuries, gastronomy is that kitchens serve more than elaborate tasty dishes. In the heat of their stoves they usually curdle culinary traditions, legends and mythslike the one that explains that every time we have breakfast a crucisan we are actually participating in a war. Because? Because with that seemingly innocent gesture we make fun of the defeat of one of the empires more influential of history. We explain ourselves. Cruasanos and wars? Yes. The relationship may sound a bit strange, but it comes with Google to find dozens of Blogsforums, magazines and Diaries that tell the same story: how the cross was created to commemorate the defeat of the Ottoman in Vienna at the end of the 17th century. To be more precise, the frustrated siege of the city by the great vizier Kara Mustafa which resulted in Kahlenberg battle and marked the beginning of the Ottoman decline in Europe. A great victory, a great cake to celebrate it. An epic story. There are war deeds that inspire poems, songs, operas, movies, paintings, novels; But … a cake? Why commemorate the siege of a city with a bun that thousands of people have breakfast throughout the world? The answer is quite simple: The legend He says that the Viennese pastries played a key role in the Ottoman defeat of 1683, so the guild wanted to celebrate it as best knew, kneading and baking mass. Of plots and noctámbulos. The story is of course worthy of the great romantic chronicles. Desperate to take Vienna, around 1683 the Ottomans began to think about ways to mock the fortification of the city. Some versions They say they decided to do so by excavating an underground gallery. Others, which set out to open tunnels to Place mines. In any case, the legend tells that, to dodge the vigilance of the Viennese, the Ottomans worked at night, among Quinqués and the moonlight, while their enemies slept. What the Muslims did not tell is that not all the residents of Vienna got into bed at night. There was a guild who worked every day from the sunset to dawn and ended up listening to the noise that the soldiers made with their peaks and shovels, which allowed him to alert the authorities and repel the enemy attack. What noctámbulos guild was that? Correct: The bakers. And the ‘Larousse’ of 1938 arrived. That this romantic dyes has reached us is explained for two reasons: centuries of oral tradition and the pen of the French chef Posper Montagnéwho in 1938 published an iconic work of universal cuisine, the ‘Larousse Gastronomique’. In addition to explaining how the crossings are elaborated, in its pages the scholar recounts the origin of the cake, echoing a version similar to the Viennese legend of the seventeenth century. In the work (at least in which it can Consult online) Montagné tells a similar story, although he places the plot during The Buddha site In 1686, not in the siege of Vienna of 1683. “The Turks besieged the city and to reach their hearts they excavated underground galleries. Some bakers, who worked at night, heard the noise made by the Turks and gave the alarm,” He recounts. But … why is it a mockery? Simple. Because when creating their new commemorative cake the Viennese pastries noticed A symbol From Islam: The growing moon. It is also explained by Montágne’s encyclopedia: “To reward the bakers who had saved the city, they were given the privilege of making a special cake that, in memory of the emblem that decorated the Ottoman flag, had to be shaped like a crescent,” duck The gastronomic encyclopedia. In summary: the new cake served to celebrate the Christian resistance and endurance of the city … and incidentally mocked the Ottoman forces. As Collect National Geographicwhen a Vienne devour one of those tasty cakes that emulated a moon really “ate the Turks.” The story was curious. The story, powerful. And for more inri it appeared ratified in a work of the prestige of the ‘Larousse Gastronomique’. So what was expected to be expected: the myth extended, gained strength and made the crosss become more than simple pastry. In their own way, they became a symbol. But is it true? The million dollar question. If gastronomy is good (in addition to satisfying palates), it is to create Myths and traditions of rigor more than questionable. Italian cuisine, Spanish either Japanese (To name only three examples) leave a few examples. And the Viennese legend of the Cruasan seems to be only that: a legend of truthfulness at least difficult to check. With you, the Kipferl. The story tells that the city’s bosoms elaborated two commemorative breads of the victory: the Kaiseremmela kind of “imperial panecillo”; and Kipferlwith a crescent -shaped. That this is the origin of what we understand today is however more than questionable, Remember From the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE). “He Kipferla baked panecillo from a dough of wheat with yeast, is common in central Europe, ” Clarifies the institution in his blog, in which he remembers that there are records that suggest that he Kipferl He ate already in the thirteenth century. Moreover, there are those who believe that their origins are older and more sweet in a similar way they can be seen in Magreb (Tchareke) or Türkiye itself, where the Ay çöreği. History and stories. “It’s almost certain that these stories are false,” assures Austrian chef Jürgen David. In fact they can be found Other stories that also relate the invention of the Capuchino with the Ottoman siege of Vienna. The popular Dunkin breakfast chain It echoes On its website for the legend that maintains that the famous coffee, with its characteristic color (similar to the habit of the Capuchin friars) it was first served in Vienna after its citizens found the sacks of coffee that the Ottoman had left behind. If true, the breakfast with which thousands of Europeans start their … Read more

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