prevent

Satya Nadella on the future of employment: “The fallacy of the fixed amount of work and the lack of imagination prevent us from moving forward”

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In addition to the cost and effects derived from its development, the biggest concern about the future of AI is knowing the impact that this technology will have on the labor market around the world. In fact, we are already beginning to see the first signs: it may not take away our jobs in the short term, but that’s it changing the way we work. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has been interviewed by Fareed Zakari in the cnn and has told his vision of how AI will affect the future of employment. To describe the scenario, Nadella uses a phrase that can seem almost cryptic until its meaning is known: “The fallacy of the fixed amount of work and the lack of imagination prevent us from moving forward.” The fallacy that stops us. Nadella calls it the lump of labor fallacy. It’s an idea widely studied and argues that there are a certain number of tasks to be performed. Employment is defined by these tasks: there are those who build houses, others put pipes, others cables, other furniture, etc. If a machine (or an AI, in this case) automates one of those tasks, fixed quantity of work theory defines that a human has one less task left to do. That is, that job would have been destroyed. For Nadella, that calculation fails because it does not take imagination into account. The typist apocalypse. The CEO of Microsoft gave a fairly descriptive example of how this theory falters in the face of technological advances: “Imagine that in the early 80s, someone said to you: “You know what? Three billion people are going to wake up tomorrow and start typing. “We would have said: and why does the world need three billion typists?” joked the company’s top executive who, according to the CEO of Perplexitybuilt the concept of office work to sell more software and was mainly responsible for the computer implementation in companies. “In the last 40 years, the entire knowledge work economy was created, and all of us have worked in it in different roles,” Nadella concluded. That is, the CEO believes that the future of employment cannot be assessed from the perspective of current labor or work organization needs, because in the future, the needs of companies will be different and the roles of employees will also be different. The fact behind the anecdote is real. In 1980 there were almost a million typists in the US. Today it is a profession that is almost extinct. And yet, office employment remains more active than ever. He just changed the way he worked. Nadella bets that something similar will happen with AI. The process of change. We are already seeing this change in the way of working in some sectors such as software engineers or in the lawyers. “What it means to be a software engineer is changing,” Nadella said. Creating a document and creating a program have become, “to some extent, the same task”: enough ask the AI ​​agent appropriate. This change is already noticeable outside of computing. In the legal sector, some firms treat AI as a quick but unreliable intern. And lawyers, increasingly, as their AI supervisors. Nadella states that: “Our ability to discern what a human does with the output of AI will be the new quality we value.” The value is no longer in typing quickly, but in know what deserves to stay and what to throw away. However, the manager has no doubts about the difficulty that all of humanity will face to complete this change in the labor paradigm: “This process is going to have some changes and a significant displacement (of employment). Not everything is going to be rosy. But when we come out on the other side, I think there will be new jobs that we will value as human beings.” Macrodelegation and microdirection. To explain day-to-day work, Nadella coins his own term: macrodelegation and micromanagement. “Each of us will become better at managing through intentions (madrodelegation) and will have the ability to direct it exactly where we want it (microdirection),” he declared in his interview with the cnn. In other words, the role of employees will be that of conductor of the orchestra of AI agents. An employee would tell them what objectives to achieve, and would supervise that the results delivered by the AI ​​meet that objective and are precise in their execution. That is, AI would not play a substitute role, but rather a collaborative one. “Does that mean that, in some way, the specialized systems engineer that we need to be able to build distributed systems in Azure disappears? No way,” stated the Microsoft CEO. Nadella’s revolution. The manager closed his interview by pointing out one of the fears that Silicon Valley is stirring: that society does not accept the change implied by the arrival of AI and this process of job displacement. There Nadella draws a historical reference. “Revolutions are great, as long as there is a reaction.” The CEO prefers an orderly transition, like the one experienced in England in 1688in which the institutions did not lose control, to a violent rupture as the French Revolutionwhich made the heads of the country’s authorities roll. In Xataka | In 1993 Satya Nadella was a lanky middle man who introduced Excel to developers. Today he is the CEO of Microsoft Image | Microsoft

Spain has more and more forests and fewer resources to prevent fires. Their solution: fire donkeys

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Over the last decades, the fight against fires has been reinforced thanks to the use of drones, satellites and AI camerasbut in some regions of Spain they are proving that there is a simpler and more effective tool: “firefighter donkeys”. As the fire becomes a major problem, devastating hectares of forest and populated areasmore and more areas of the country see herds of horses as a valuable ally against llamas. Nothing our ancestors didn’t know. Fire donkeys? As is. It is not about using chicks to carry water drums, shovels or hoses, but rather taking advantage of the skills of these animals to keep the forests cared for, clear the undergrowth and, in this way, prevent forest fires from advancing uncontrollably. Its role is so important that there are those who already use that expression directly: “firefighter donkeys”a graphic and powerful way to claim its function. What exactly do they do? Pasture. Give free rein to your voracious and insatiable appetite. It may not seem like a big deal, but when we talk about groups of dozens and dozens of donkeys that advance in packs along hectares of forest, feeding on grasses and bushes, their effect is crucial. Their ‘crews’ help keep the fields clean, which, in the event of a fire, makes it difficult for the flames to find fuel to feed them and help them spread. As they advance, the donkeys create firebreaks in areas that are not always easy to access with machinery. What’s more, they do it so well that they are already being used to maintain firewalls. And where are they used? One of the clearest examples is found in Catalonia. Over there six years ago Joan Cedó Sans laid the foundations for what it is today Tivissa Donkey Firefightersa non-profit organization that pursues a double objective: to give abused or abandoned horses a chance and, at the same time, take advantage of their voracious appetite to keep the mountains cleared. A textbook “win-win” that guarantees the animals a peaceful existence, care and good nutrition and, in the process, prevents you from mounting them (every time most affected due to depopulation) become flammable traps. How did it start? The Catalan initiative started in 2020 with a bunch of donkeysalready had 28 animals in 2022 and is now around 60 individuals, a large herd that moves through the mountains of the region cleaning public and private lands. The headquarters of the organization is in Tivissa, Tarragona. “The 2013 Tivissa fire happened very close to where I have the horses and I thought the animals could help clear the undergrowth and prevent fires,” explained Joan Cedó a few years ago Diary of Tarragonawhere he remembered how the project began with only three horses from a Swiss couple who wanted to return to their country and did not know what to do with the animals. Does it only apply in Catalonia? No. In fact, Donkey Firefighters It was not even the first initiative of that type in Spain. Years before they had started doing something similar in Andalusia, where since 2014 a group of horses from the association The Happy Burrito is dedicated to carrying out a similar work in the surroundings of the Doñana National Park: they graze, devouring dry brush, grass, weeds… elements that at first glance may seem harmless but that, in the event of a forest fire breaking out, represent food for the flames. In Galicia either The Basque Country It is also possible to find similar initiatives. It’s not surprising at all. More and more organizations are demanding the role of herding and the cattle to keep areas that have been affected by depopulation clean. In 2022 Barcelona itself activated an experiment with more than 200 sheep, goats and lambs to keep the Collserola undergrowth at bay and reduce the risk of fires. Nothing they haven’t already tried in Portugal. Why donkeys? That’s the million dollar question. Beyond the value of giving abused or abandoned chicks a second chance, why turn to these animals and not other smaller ones, such as sheep or goats? Cedó makes it clear on CNN: “The work that donkeys do, neither goats nor sheep can do.” Not only do they weigh more than sheep, which allows them to crush and compact the dry grass in their path, equids are also characterized by their insatiable appetite. They move slowly, but constantly and they do not dislike the dry grass that becomes so dangerous with fires. Images | Julio Romero (Flickr) and Gabriel Fdez (Flickr) In Xataka | The mere existence of donkeys has been a mystery of natural history for decades. One we have solved

What it is and how to prevent it from appearing on your profile

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Let’s explain to you what that is green dot that begins to appear in WhatsApp contactsand how you can avoid it. It is an indicator that little by little begins to reach some usersand the idea is that it will spread to everyone. We are going to start by explaining to you what the function of this indicator is, so that you understand what it means for it to appear in profiles and what it means for it to appear in yours. Then, we will tell you how to prevent it from happening to you. What is the green dot on a WhatsApp profile The green dot on a contact’s profile photo is a status indicator. It means that the user is active at the time indicated, you have WhatsApp open and are looking at it. The idea of ​​this indicator is that can you know if someone is available before you start writing to him. The green dot is a real-time indicator that will appear when the user is using WhatsApp, and will disappear the moment the user stops being active. The green dot is only shown in the contact information area, when we click on the bubble with their photo to see their information. Inside, it will appear at the bottom of the roundel where the profile photo appears. How to prevent the indicator from appearing At the moment, this green dot has begun to reach Android and iOS, but only in the beta versions of WhatsApp, although it is expected that it will eventually reach all users. If you don’t want it to appear So that others do not know when you are using WhatsApp, you will have to make some changes to the settings. What you have to do is enter the WhatsApp settings and Click on the section Privacy. Once inside, you have to click on Last time time and onlinewhich is the option that appears at the top. This will take you to a screen where you have to change who can see the time you last logged in, and then change who can see when you’re online to match. With this, you will be able to configure who can see your green dot when it reaches everyone, and you can choose Nobody so that no one can or your contacts. There are several options. Here, it’s a bit confusing, because the green dot depends on the option Who can see when I’m online. However, at the moment this cannot be changed independently, so you will have to also change who can see when you last connected. Cover image | Ivan Linares In Xataka Basics | What to do if your WhatsApp account is hacked

It’s free, open source and Adobe can’t do anything to prevent it

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There are a thousand and one alternatives to photoshop very interesting that allow you to have a powerful photo editor without entering into large payments or subscriptions of any kind. GIMP has established itself as one of the most prominent open source alternatives, although its interface is not entirely friendly if you come from an Adobe environment. PhotoGIMP was born precisely to resolve that clash. This is a free patch that reorganizes its interface, shortcuts, and various settings to make it much more familiar to anyone coming from Adobe software. What exactly is PhotoGIMP PhotoGIMP is a set of configuration files that replace the default GIMP settings. The project is maintained by Dionatan Simioni, known as Diolinuxspecialized mainly in Linux and free software, and is distributed openly under the GPL-3.0 license through GitHub, which means that it can be used, modified and distributed freely. It should be noted that PhotoGIMP does not add new features to GIMP nor does it turn it into Photoshop. As explained in the project’s official repository, it is a free, community-maintained patch that transforms GIMP into an interface with the idea that easy to use for those coming from Photoshop. So the editor behind it is still GIMP, with its pluses and minuses. What exactly does PhotoGIMP change? PhotoGIMP touches several elements of the user experience, but not the program engine: Tool layout. Icons and panels are rearranged to mimic the position that Photoshop users are accustomed to, so you don’t have to learn from scratch where everything is. Keyboard shortcuts. The keybinds follow Adobe’s official documentation for the Windows version, so much of the muscle memory from years of using Photoshop still applies. Use of the canvas. The default settings are modified to leave the maximum possible work space visible on the screen. Own welcome screen and icon. The patch includes a different start screen than standard GIMP and, on Linux, a launcher with its own name and icon in the system menu. Default language. The configuration applied by the patch leaves the program in English as standard, although it can be changed from the settings at any time. How to install PhotoGIMP The process varies slightly depending on the operating system, but always follows the same logic. And first you must have GIMP installed and have opened it at least once, so that it generates its own configuration folders, and then replaces those files with the ones included in PhotoGIMP. On Linuxthe patch is intended primarily for the version of GIMP installed through Flatpak. The process consists of downloading the compressed file for Linux from the official repository and extracting it directly into the user’s personal folder, so that the files are placed in the hidden folders .config and .local. If you have installed GIMP through another manager, such as apt, dnf either Pacmaninstead of Flatpak, the process also works as long as the configuration folder is in the same location and the installed version is 3.0 or higher. On Windowspress Windows key + R, type %APPDATA%\GIMP and copy the contents of the version of PhotoGIMP for Windows, previously downloaded and unzipped, into that folder. On macOSthe destination is the folder ~/Library/Application Support/GIMPaccessible from the Finder with the shortcut Cmd + Shift + G, where the configuration folder that comes with the patch is also copied. In all three cases It is highly recommended to make a backup before from the original settings folder, in case you want to keep your previous custom settings as PhotoGIMP overwrites files such as shortcuts, panel layout, templates, or visual theme. Uninstalling it is just as simple. And all you have to do is delete that same configuration folder and reopen GIMP, which will run automatically with its factory settings. It should be noted that the current version of the patch only works with GIMP 3.0 or higher. So if you are still using the 2.10 branch you will have to update the program before applying PhotoGIMP. It’s GIMP, both for the good and the not so good As we were saying, PhotoGIMP aims to reduce those small initial frictions for those who are more accustomed to Photoshop. If you have never been convinced by GIMP at first because of its capabilities, PhotoGIMP is not going to change your life. But if you were a little nervous about starting in GIMP because ‘it looks different from Photoshop’, This patch aims to take away your fear. So for the rest, it’s still GIMP, both for the good and the not so good. And you have a powerful free and open source editor at your disposal, but it still does not offer more specific and complex tools for professionals that Photoshop does have, such as its advanced color management with native CMYK, more complex editorial design, automation, integration with AI, etc. For the rest, if you don’t miss this more concrete and professional aspect of Photoshop, you are more than enough with GIMP, especially since since version 3.0 you also have the option of non-destructive adjustment layers. The PhotoGIMP repository has more than 13,000 stars on GitHub, is supported by the community, and has hundreds of forks from other developers, as well as translations and alternative installers. Wow, it is one of the most outstanding options to escape the more than 300 euros per year of Photoshop in case you can manage with everything that GIMP gives you. Besides, no account or login of any kind requiredsaves all the work on the computer itself without depending on cloud services, and the installation and uninstallation of the plugin is resolved by copying or deleting a folder. In Xataka | Your name, written with rivers and craters: NASA’s amazing tool based on thousands of satellite images

If the question is how to prevent our car from being an oven, some German experts believe that we have been making mistakes all our lives.

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Beach in the morning, visit to the beach bar and nap in the rented house. It doesn’t sound bad. You leave the beach bar with your belly full and your soul intoxicated with the sweet feeling of carelessness that invades you when dessert arrives and you say “why wouldn’t I eat that three-scoop ice cream.” But when going to the car, the harsh reality. The sun beats like never before. Touching anything inside the car is risking a trip to the hospital with a second-degree burn, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to lower the temperature inside. “But I put the parasol on”you will say. But… oh, friend. What if you have put it wrong? What if you have done everything backwards? That is what the German experts from the ADAC defend, a kind of German RACE famous for its reliability studies but they put the focus on everything that revolves around our cars. And his last publication is a good example of this. More “fresh” The automobile club ADAC has published an article in which it explains what temperature a car reaches in the sun and what measures we can take to reduce the temperature we will find inside. It must be taken into account that the temperature of the cabin in a car is not only important to avoid burns when touching the steering wheel or gear lever. According to the DGTdriving indoors that exceeds 30 degrees can have effects on our body similar to driving under the influence of alcohol. Therefore, when we get to a car that is parked in the sun, it is important to try to lower the temperature as soon as possible. The best idea is to launch what went viral as “the japanese trick”: open the windows and fan the car with the door itself to move the air inside and try to get it out as soon as possible. If you turn on the air conditioning, you must play with it to throw it at the feet or the ceiling depending on whether or not we are driving and the windows are open or not. But to make the task easier, it is very important to take precautions beforehand. One of them is, of course, the parasol. From the RACC they assure that using the sunshade can reduce the interior temperature of the vehicle by up to 11 degrees. We arrive at our destination, we grab the sunshade in the upper area and make sure that it covers the entire surface of the windshield, we close the car and we leave. Sure? What the ADAC experts say, this is not the best way to act. To do this, they have put five exactly identical Dacia Sandero in the sun and have looked for the best way to ensure that the temperature in the cabin is as low as possible. In his study, the car that was unprotected reached an internal temperature of 53ºC (blessed 53ºC if we compare it with the temperatures that the interior of our car can reach in the sun in Spain) and the lowest temperature had been achieved by covering the car with a tarp that reflects the sun’s rays. Obviously, this option is the least practical due to the size of the tarp that must be moved in the trunk and the inconvenience of putting it on and taking it off. Of course, the 43ºC achieved inside made the difference. The second least useful option was to put a white cloth over the car. In this case, the temperature reached was 50ºC. And here comes the interesting thing because it is the option that we use the most. The experts tried putting the sunshade inside the car, under the windshield, and outside the car, over the windshield. And the result was that putting it on the windshield reduced the temperature by 4ºC compared to putting it under the glass. In fact, putting the sunshade over the windshield left the temperature at 45ºC, very close to the best option. On the contrary, installing the windshield in the traditional way left the interior temperature at 49ºC. “Semi-garage” is Google’s translation of putting a tarp on the car to cover it The truth is that it makes sense. When the sun acts directly on the glass of the car, it heats up and acts as a magnifying glass, so the temperature in the cabin rises even more. Besides, his own glass emits more heat inside when it is hot, which is why it is not entirely advisable to buy a car with a sunroof without a curtain if you live in especially hot climates. In this case, the heat from the glass is projected onto the heads of the passengers. By placing the windshield inside we prevent the rays from directly hitting the glass and, therefore, its capacity to retain heat and raise the temperature further is lower. In that case, what we should do before leaving is to “grab” some ribbons from the parasol when closing the doors so that the parasol does not fly away. Photo | Andrew Bone In Xataka | The best way to use air conditioning in the car: the keys to fighting the heat

Valencia has found a way to prevent fires like someone watering a garden: huge fire cannons

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Like someone watering a garden. 10,000 liters per minute at 42 meters away. The Valencian Community has a unique weapon to fight fire: fire cannons that are activated as soon as the environmental sensors detect the slightest outbreak of fire. And these sentinels are armored to entire neighborhoods. In the Devesa The Salerin Valencia city and under red notice due to high temperatures, eight fixed towers have been set up on Gola del Pujol avenue and a set of portable cannons that move through the natural park. The municipal forecast is to reach about 40 towers in 2031. The system began in the Colonia Santa Marina urbanization (Carcaixent), where the Forest Fire Defense System (SIDEINFO) already installed similar cannons in 2006 for collective defense against a neighborhood surrounded by mountains. Entrusted to Neptune. Guardian is the name of this project and it has no other purpose than to serve water cannons to create “green barriers” around key developments. The objective now is to expand in areas such as Masia de Traver, Els Pous, La Canyada (north and south) and Valencia La Vella. In Torrent, for example, the Vedat has been protected for more than a decade by 24 cannons distributed throughout the “green lung” of the city, covering more than 50 hectares of forest. They are activated automatically or manually when the risk increases, and the city council itself is considering bringing this same methodology to Serra Perenxisa using hydrants and pipes on forest trails. and it works. Already prevented a fire from spreading in the Túria Natural Park, dumping more than 218,000 liters of water in just over half an hour. Companies such as Hidraqua, Cetaqua, Medi XXI, along with the universities of Valencia are involved in this enormous project. In fact, Medi XXI also sells domestic and portable versions of these cannons for isolated homes and small urbanizations. While other communities face the same wave of fires with extreme confinement, as is the case of the entire population of Albeldain Castillonroy, resorting to the essential ES-Alert warnings and massive deployments of brigades and UME, Valencia has found another less reactive model. What is a fire cannon. It all starts with the SIDEINFO tower system. They are water monitors that measure between 12 and 16 meters high, shoot water about 42 meters away and mobilize almost double the discharge of a Canadair-type amphibious plane (about 6,000 liters at a time). They are fixed cannons, connected to tanks of about 500 m³ and pumping houses, integrated into a home automation network with sensors and weather stations that allow simulating the evolution of a fire and activating the irrigation/reinforcement system when the risk index demands it. In addition to moving large flows of water, they can also project foam with a range greater than 30-40 meters and can vary between manual, motorized or remote control. A difference between communities. The Valencian Community has become a testing laboratory. And the case of El Saler is quite unique: the city has been investing since 2023 in a system patented by the consulting firm Medi XXI GSA. The nucleus resides at that point where the CV-500 highway and the urban center intersect the forest. The engineer Ferran Dalmau argument that this system only makes sense at very specific points of the urban-forest interface, where opening large firebreaks would be unfeasible. Such an evacuation would cause a huge landscape impact, because it would leave a mountain with a giant bald patch. Although not everyone thinks the same: WWF Remember that these sprinkler systems are anecdotal for now and they are not clear that they work against high intensity fires. Once again, early detection, cleaning of perimeter vegetation and neighborhood self-protection plans are essential preventive guidelines. Protect yourself against maximum risk. In Valencia, where wind conditions can fan any spark, sometimes a fire overcomes the barriers of surveillance, forest management, mobile firefighting devices and, in short, the Special Plan against the Risk of Forest Fires (PEIF) itself. These cannons are, de facto, a reinforcement system. During the last few weeks, tracks and roads have been closed to traffic, the device has been reinforced with a forest nursery, El Saler Fire Station, Local Police and Civil Protection volunteers. This year, the deployment has mobilized 4,401 troops and 20 air resources throughout the Community, with 2,313 professionals in the province of Valencia, 56 forest firefighting units and 65 observatoriesten of them with 24-hour surveillance. Only in El Saler has a reinforcement of five firefighters and two extra patrol teams been activated. The Stop al Foc device of the Valencian Community brings together almost 1,700 professionals – 724 in the province of València, 470 in Castellón and 434 in Alicante – for a stage that, statistically, 68% is attributed to human activity (38% intentional, 30% due to negligence). The Albelda case. Some are saved and others burn? The difference with Huesca is clear: fewer water options, more unpopulated areas of territory and environmental conditions more conducive to fire. The declared fire at 18:15 In agricultural and forestry land, it devastated 100 hectares in a few hours and forced the Government of Aragon to raise the PROCINFO plan to operational situation 2. They cut off the N-230 and A-140 roads and the Military Emergency Unit (UME) is already there. It is already controlled, luckily, but the entire Tamarite de Litera area is at risk and the figures point to more than 400 hectares burned. All precautions are insufficient: the 2026 fire map is presented as the one with the highest incidence of forest fires in the EU. The Copernicus and FIRMS records speak of some 56,000 hectares burned, which represents almost 40% of the burned surface in the entire Union. The data from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition is somewhat lower (39,700 ha until June 21, you can consult here updated data), but they agree that June has been the most destructive month. Doubling the numbers. What’s more, 19 fires have been recorded from July 2 alone until … Read more

prevent you from being “cooked” inside

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Summer is practically here and the thermometers do not stop rising with a heat wave that is at the doors of our country. But beyond the unbearable heat, another of the sensations that we can experience on these dates is the loss of appetite or we even see how our digestion becomes heavier when we eat something heavy. And behind this predilection for salads and the rejection of heavy dishes hides a sophisticated thermoregulatory survival mechanism that science has been studying for years. A grandmother’s advice. When these times arrive, light meals such as the much-loved pasta salads appear on the table, but the reality is that it is not traditional advice, but rather it is a recommendation supported by scientific evidence to avoid heat stress, optimize our metabolism and protect our cardiovascular health. That is why in these coming months the largest meals should be a little further away for our own health. The internal engine. To understand the reasons why we must opt ​​for light meals, we have to go inside our body. Here when we eat, our body needs to expend energy to digest, absorb and metabolize them, and this process, known as thermogenesis induced by diet, generates internal heat. In this way, when we consume large or high-calorie meals, our heart rate rises and blood production doubles during the following two hours to assist the digestive system. Yes to this cardiovascular overload Add to that an extreme ambient temperature that sometimes exceeds 40 degrees, the cocktail can be dangerous. It is studied. A study published in 2022 showed that a high-fat diet dramatically increases oxidative stress in muscles and doubles the risk of heat stroke when exposed to a temperature of 41°C. And, as we have mentioned before, heavy digestion causes greater oxygen consumption and an exacerbated generation of internal heat that predisposes the body to thermal stress. The heaviest. To all this, it must be noted that overeating or eating foods rich in saturated fat during the summer triggers immediate consequences, such as digestive overload. This basically happens because the body tries to send blood to the skin in order to cool down and reduce its body temperature (that’s why we turn red), which delays the emptying of the stomach and makes us feel very heavy. But in addition, foods rich in fat can generate endotoxemia and inflammation after finishing eating, accompanied by drowsiness that can last up to four hours after eating. The advice in summer. In the face of heavy digestion, science points out a clear path that we should follow: extreme hydration, fiber and the Mediterranean diet. The historic PREDIMED study confirmed that this dietary pattern, naturally light and based on healthy fats and vegetables, reduces by 30% the incidence of cardiovascular diseases and reverses the metabolic syndrome that can arise in summer. The objectives. The first of them is hydration, which must be very aggressive, but not only through drink, but also through food. Here there is food such as cucumber or watermelon, which have a composition of more than 90% water and are presented as essential tools to maintain basal temperature. Our microbiota. Our intestinal bacteria also suffer from summer routine changes, as seen in a recent VHIR study carried out with more than a thousand people in Spain, which showed that a diet based on fruits, vegetables and nuts promotes a much more diverse microbiota and prevents dysbiosis. On the contrary, ultra-processed foods, alcohol and sugary drinks, which can increase in the summer, reduce bacterial diversity, bringing our intestine closer to inflammatory patterns. Images | Lee Myungseong In Xataka | Reheating the same container of food in the microwave over and over again has a great benefit: bacteria

how to prevent society from collapsing because of AI

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Everyone seems to be clear that AI is going to have an impact on the labor market, the problem is that They do not agree on what that impact will be like.. While some say that will destroy many jobsothers predict that will create many more. In the midst of this discussion, a group of experts met to try to imagine what the world will be like in 2030. Spoiler: it doesn’t look good. The meeting. They tell it in the Wall Street Journal. Last week, 40 experts in areas such as technology, economics and public policy met in a building in Washington. At the meeting they analyzed scenarios on how AI will transform American society by 2030. Their objective was to propose strategies to minimize the negative impact on a social level, because they assume there will be one. The meeting was organized by Windfall Trustan independent organization that seeks to anticipate and manage the changes that AI will bring, designing policies and legal frameworks so that wealth is distributed fairly. Macro prosperity. The scenario that was proposed at the meeting was called ‘Prosperity on paper’. In it, these experts draw a flourishing economy in macro indicators, but that hides an important social problem. In this scenario, AI has almost doubled the US GDP, labor productivity is skyrocketing, and the S&P500 index is rising. Micro precariousness. On paper everything is perfect, but the reality is that society is going through a serious employment problem, not because of the rise in unemployment (which is also true) but because of what they call “underemployment”, which is expected to rise from 8 to 14%. Many people have casual, part-time jobs or are forced to accept jobs for which they are overqualified. Blue collar jobs. It seems clear that the impact of AI on employment will mainly affect white-collar workers, that is, office workers. Many see an opportunity in blue collar jobs such as plumbing, electricity or masonry. However, according to these experts, although there will be an increase in demand and salaries for these professions, it will be temporary. All those office workers will flock to learn traditional trades, which will cause an increase in supply and a drop in value. cso everything bad. Experts predict that this contrast between what the data says and the reality of the working class will cause political unrest to skyrocket, the generation gap to widen, and also a decrease in the birth rate due to the discontent of young people. But not everything will be bad, they also foresee that healthcare and education will be cheaper thanks to AI tools and that people will have more free time to do creative activities. So what. The objective of the meeting was to propose possible policies to prevent this scenario from occurring and attendees had several ideas. The proposals focus on two major fronts: on the one hand, an effort to requalify and train workers, and on the other, create mechanisms that allow the wealth generated by AI to be redistributed, such as the universal basic income that Elon Musk himself mentionedspecific taxes on AI companies and even creating a sovereign fund where part of the profits go. The attendees themselves admitted that political polarization will make it very difficult to approve reforms of this caliber, although they are clear that leaving things as they are will probably be much more expensive. Image | Xataka with Gemini In Xataka | It remains to be seen if AI will take your job one day. Until then, these are the best job search tools

Predicting Alzheimer’s 10 years in advance is now a scientific reality. The challenge now is to prevent healthcare from collapsing

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Alzheimer’s is a devastating disease that is undoubtedly a true ghost, since it only It becomes visible when the damage is already irreparable and that, despite trying to stop it, it is becoming difficult to control it. And historically, the medical diagnosis comes when memory begins to fail, but by then the brain has been suffering in silence for years, even decades. Now science focuses on the need for early diagnosis so that treatments can work. A new analysis. One of the ways to detect this disease before it begins to show the classic symptoms such as memory loss is through a blood test. This is the milestone that has been collected in The Lancet magazine recently thanks to research from the University of California, and that could generate a large population screening that is not free of controversy. What they did. The researchers followed 1,350 people aged between 56 and 69, without any type of dementia, for more than 35 years. And here the key was to look for specific proteins circulating in the blood that increased in the earliest phases of Alzheimer’s, as occurs with others marked in other diseases such as PSA in prostate cancer. And they found two biomarkers. The first of them is Aβ42/40, which is an early indicator that warns of the accumulation of hateful beta-amyloid plaques in the brain. But they also found the protein p-tau217, which is considered today the most precise marker for the pathology. The results. The 6% of participants who tested positive for these biomarkers showed a four-fold increased risk of developing verbal memory problems and a decline in their cognitive speed a decade later. But science has been trying to refine this tool for years, looking for markers such as GFAP, which rises about ten years before symptoms appear. See the invisible. The blood test does not walk alone in this diagnostic revolution, since on the same day, The Lancet published a second study based on nearly 800 participants from the US and Canada that tests a new and sophisticated neuroimaging technology: the MK6240 PET plotter. Until now, visualizing the tau protein, which is one of those responsible for Alzheimer’s by accumulating in neurons, was a great challenge. But this new tracer promises to be much more sensitive, detecting twice as many positive cases in healthy people with amyloid accumulation compared to the standard used today. You have to wait. Before throwing the bells in the air, it should be noted that experts point out that this test not ready to be used as general population screening. The reason lies in mathematics, since the prevalence of asymptomatic Alzheimer’s in healthy middle-aged people remains low in absolute terms, so applying this test to everyone would generate a very high volume of false positives. That is, an increase in this protein that is not actually related to early Alzheimer’s. But logically, the fear, anxiety and the resulting cascade of confirmatory tests would collapse the health services that are already stressed, and furthermore, the drugs we have, despite the fact that they stop the effects of the disease in its earliest phases, are not yet definitive. That is why we must remain on the right path, but there is still a long way to go to get this disease under control. Images | Robina Weermeijer Testalize.me In Xataka | Alzheimer’s no longer seems irreversible: science allows brains with advanced damage to recover for the first time in animals

Renfe trusted in Justice to prevent Iryo from using its workshops. Your last hope just faded away

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Renfe will have to open its workshops to Iryo. At least for now. This is what the National Court has decided, rejecting the very precautionary measures requested by Renfe with which it intended to close the Italian company’s access to its space. Of course, the judicial procedure continues, so it is not at all clear what will end up happening in the medium term. No. This is what the National Court has determined. It does not accept the very precautionary measures requested by Renfe to prevent Iryo from using its facilities to carry out its own heavy maintenance activities at its facilities, they point out in The Economist. The National Court sides with the CNMC, at least for now, in the battle that Renfe maintains against Iryo and the regulators. However, the procedure continues and Justice will have to confirm whether, in the future, Renfe must keep its facilities open to rivals. The CNMC. This first decision of the court reaffirms the position of the CNMC, which claims to be allowing all the protagonists of this film to operate under equal conditions. Cani Fernández, president of the CNMC, defended the position of the regulators, arguing that “the CNMC has to guarantee access to the market under equal conditions,” in words reported by He Northern Castile. Since the conflict beganthe CNMC has sided with Iryo and demands that Renfe open its workshops so that the Italian company can carry out maintenance work on its trains. They point out that if Iryo has to send its trains to Italy, it would lose them for weeks and put it at a disadvantage in the market. The other alternative, that scheduled maintenance is not carried out, is not logically viable either. What Renfe says. For its part, Renfe believes that give access to Iryo to carry out the activities that have already been advanced to them has no place within the competitive framework that the Spanish company and the rest of its rivals had given themselves. Renfe does not avoid its obligation to have to lend its facilities to Iryo and Ouigo but remember that this is only the case for light maintenance tasks. However, they allege, Iryo has requested to be able to carry out its own heavy maintenance activities. This, according to Renfe, would have direct consequences on its offer because its facilities are already working at full capacity. The company assures that if it gives entry to the Italian company will suffer the following consequences: Remove 1.2 million seats from its offer due to not being able to maintain its own trains Of those seats, one million would correspond to the offer offered as a public service Loss of 60 million euros in income What Iryo says. In its allegations, Renfe points out that Iryo’s activities would occupy 10% of the La Sagra facilities, where its Comprehensive Maintenance Base is located. Iryo reduces this figure to 7% and points out that it would not be too much of a problem since they are activities that can be scheduled based on the mileage of the trains. They emphasize that if Renfe does not give them access to their workshops they will have to take them to Rome and that this implies leaving them out of circulation for up to two months, a situation that they consider unfair. The company has not made any comment on the possibility of setting up its own workshops in Spain, just as promised upon arrival. They complain. The latter does not convince Renfe that she feels aggrieved in this fight. Back in the day, he discovered that Ouigo was carrying out heavy unscheduled maintenance work in his workshops. Now they believe that giving Iryo access to act in the same way is not fair because it is not specified or by the Directive 2012/34/EU (RECAST) on the single railway space nor the standard EN 15380-4:2021 Spanish. Faced with the first decision of the CNMC, Renfe responded by closing the door and putting forward its reasons but the organization stood firmand. The next thing was to appeal the decision to the National Court requesting very precautionary measures but these, as we say, have been rejected. At the moment, Justice forces the workshops to open but the procedure continues to decide whether, in the medium term, Renfe, Iryo and Ouigo must maintain this same balancing act or if the Spanish company can close the door on them. Photo | Renfe and Iryo In Xataka | There is a fight between the railway operators to get the best drivers and Renfe is winning it

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