Science

Science suggests that it is a great shield against cognitive deterioration

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In our society, the fact that grandparents end up taking care of their grandchildren throughout the day or having to pick them up from school It is something quite normalboosted mainly by the problems of conciliation familiar. This is something that has been the subject of much controversy because, when you reach a certain age, carrying the burden of having a child under your responsibility can take its toll. But now science indicates that it has important benefits. New tests. A study published this year in the magazine Psychology and Aging points out that being involved in caring for grandchildren provides a benefit to cognitive health, although it has different important nuances related to sex and time dedicated. The science behind. This study focused on data from English Longitudinal Study of Aging where More than 1,700 grandparents over 50 years of age have been analyzed. In this case, to ensure maximum precision in the results, the researchers used a matching method, comparing grandparent caregivers with those who did not care for their grandchildren, but who did share demographic and health characteristics. What did they see? With this sample on the table, what was seen is that both grandmothers and grandfathers who are caregivers showed higher levels of verbal fluency compared to the control group. Furthermore, both genders had better episodic memory compared to matched controls. In this way, it can be concluded that grandparents who take care of their grandchildren tend to show better cognitive functioning than those who do not. Quality versus quantity. One of the most revealing conclusions of the study debunks a common myth: the amount of time spent is not the determining factor. In this way, spending more or fewer hours caring for one’s grandson or granddaughter does not predict the effect it may have on brain cognition. But what really affects brain health in this case is the diversity of tasks. What was seen is that grandparents who participated in a greater variety of activities experienced better cognitive outcomes. These activities include, for example, preparing food for your grandchildren, spending time playing with them, helping them with their homework, or picking them up from daycare or school. Gender difference. Although both grandfather and grandmother showed higher initial cognitive levels when caring for their grandchildren, with the passage of time it changed. In the case of both sexes, it was observed that both verbal fluency and episodic memory improved substantially over time. But the difference is precisely in the temporal decline, causing grandmothers who have cared for their grandchildren to have a slower cognitive loss over time than caring grandparents, who maintain the same speed of loss. Because? The researchers here suggest that these differences may be due to how they relate to different genders and how they collaborate on care tasks. In this case, grandmothers tend to become much more deeply involved in the physical and emotional care of children. If we turn to the grandparents, we find that they are involved in leisure activities and often carry out care tasks in the company of the grandmothers. This way, you are not as focused on care. The limit. Logically, Maintaining multiple productive roles, such as family caregiving, can promote a more active lifestyle that positively impacts people’s cognitive functions. However, research warns that adding care responsibilities to the usual activities of these grandparents can be stressful and leave our grandparents feeling overwhelmed and with little autonomy. Images | Vitaly Gariev In Xataka | Your grandmother is an evolutionary advantage: science already knows why they generate an indestructible bond with their grandchildren

The economy’s big fear was a simultaneous global drought. Science has found our lifesaver

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We have been observing for years how climatic extremes They hit different parts of the globe, with the experience in Spain still very marked. But with him increase in temperatures To the extreme, one of the biggest fears of climatologists and economists is the synchrony of global droughts. That is, a scenario in which the main food-producing regions dry out at the same time. The good news is that science indicates that the Earth (at the moment) is not drying out. A problem. Logically, if the main countries in the world where wheat, rice, corn or soybeans are produced had a drought simultaneously, we would have a huge problem of product supplywhich for many is a real nightmare. But here the researchers have reached a conclusion: synchronized global droughts are severely limited and barely affect between 1.8% and 6.5% of the global land surface at the same time. Without a doubt, a great respite for economists who saw the end of the world as we know it and who has been published in Nature. But the most impressive thing is that all this is thanks to the oceans. What we knew. Until now, we knew that major climate events such as The Child wave North Atlantic Oscillationcould alter rainfall patterns thousands of miles away through what scientists call “teleconnections.” And it is something that the research team itself pointed out in the past: there are interconnected drought nodes at different latitudes, most in North America, South America, Africa and Australia. That is, when there is drought in one place, it can move to another. But, if these nodes are connected… Why doesn’t the entire planet dry out at once when there is an anomaly like El Niño? The answer is in the oceanic variability. An ally. In this case, the oceans act as an immense regulatory mechanism and that is why the authors literally speak of a phenomenon called ‘geographic trapping’. In this way, the dynamics of the oceans force the scale of these hydrological extremes to remain confined to certain areas, preventing drought from spreading across all continents simultaneously between the different nodes. It matters more that it doesn’t rain. Another of the findings that may be surprising derives from a common myth about extreme droughts. In this case we usually automatically associate the worst droughts with the suffocating heat wavesbut, nevertheless, the data from the last 120 years are clear in pointing out that the lack of precipitation dominates over high temperatures when determining the severity of a drought. That is to say, it is important that it does not rain or that it is extremely hot. Specifically, the lack of rain is responsible for two-thirds of the impact of the severity of these events, relegating temperature to a secondary role, although not negligible in a world that is moving towards warming of up to three degrees Celsius. It’s good news. That the planet has mechanisms to avoid a total global drought is excellent news for global food security and international markets, by ensuring supply for supermarkets. But scientists point out that we should not let our guard down. It must be kept in mind that, although 6.5% of land affected simultaneously, the maximum possibility that we have mentioned before, seems small on a planetary scale, if that percentage coincides exactly with the great “breadbaskets of the world”, the economic and humanitarian disaster can be equally devastating. In this way, the regions identified as “hubs” host a large part of global agricultural production, and the study warns of a growing systemic vulnerability in these areas. Images | edcharlie In Xataka | The drought is turning water into a very scarce and valuable commodity in Spain. And there are already organized groups of thieves

Science is clear that it is better to ‘suffer’ 10 minutes a day

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For years we have had a daily goal burned into our minds and also on the activity bracelets we have on our wrists: take 10,000 steps a day. A mantra that doctors have repeated, like the intake of two liters of water a daybut little by little it is pivoting to a completely different approach, since it does not depend on how much we move, but on how we do it. A paradigm shift. Expert Rhonda Patrick already pointed out Because as a society we should consider changing the goal of 10,000 steps in our daily lives to give way to a new concept that is revolutionizing preventive medicine, which is VILPA, which is the acronym for ‘Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity’ in English. This refers to doing small bursts of exercise of one or two minutes on a daily basis and which can be done several times a day. Something that is very simple, and although it may seem like it may have a harmless result in patients, the results point to the opposite. Its importance. To see if this works or not, we can go to the data extracted from the large groups of UK Biobank patients already a study published in 2022 which analyzed more than 25,000 people. Here it was seen that only 3 to 4 minutes of VILPA daily with bursts of just 1-2 minutes is associated with a 26-30% reduction in total mortality and specifically from cancer. But if we go further, we also observe a reduction of between 32% and 34% in cardiovascular mortality. However, the most relevant thing is that the benefits increase almost linearly the more minutes of vigorous activity you accumulate. Better than being sedentary. If we look at the most recent studies, such as published by The Lancent This year with more than 135,000 participants, it was confirmed that going from doing nothing to adding just between 1 and 6 minutes of vigorous exercise reduces mortality by 30% in the most sedentary people. The conclusion here is quite clear because we have a great performance investing very little time in the sport. It’s not all at once. One of the big doubts we have is whether those 10 minutes we are talking about have to be done in one go or if it is worth running a little to catch the bus. Here studies suggest that the way you do it does not matter as much as the total dose of exercise. This means that taking small exercise pills throughout the day offers the same benefits as doing them in one continuous session at the gym. This is great news for those who do not have time to go to a gym to train, since climbing the stairs quickly or carrying heavy bags counts, a lot. Rejuvenate the heart. One of the methods we have available to better structure the intensity of training It’s in the ‘Norwegian 4×4’. A protocol developed by different researchers that advocates applying four four-minute intervals of very high intensity along with three minutes of moderate active recovery between each block. With this simple regimen, the heart can be ‘rejuvenated’, causing the left ventricle to reverse its morphological changes and also improving the maximum volume of oxygen in patients with heart failure. That is why we have a much more efficient heart. You have to walk. Obviously, taking 10,000 steps a day is not stupid, and we must continue taking walking as an excellent habit for metabolic and joint health. However, the “10 minutes of intensity” figure supported by VILPA studies reveals an uncomfortable truth: walking at a walking pace does not replace the physiological benefit of being short of breath. As studies in huge cohorts show, introducing just a few minutes where your heart works at its maximum generates a great benefit in health and longevity compared to simple step volume. Images | Ingo Jakubke In Xataka | Neither walking nor running: science suggests that the squat is the true “drug” for healthy aging

An economic science fiction text has sunk Visa and Mastercard in the stock market. The reason is more disturbing than the story itself

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Citrini Research, a hedge fund American published this week a text written as if it were a macroeconomic memorandum from June 2028. It is not a prediction, its authors warn. It is a speculative exercise. A feasible scenario. It has achieved 24 million impressions, and counting. It is not an anecdotal tweet. The markets they have responded by sinking. Visa has fallen 4.4%. Mastercard, 6.3%. American Express, almost 8%. And Capital One, 8%. This deserves an explanation. And it’s not what it seems. Between the lines. The market reaction is not explained by the specific content of the Citrini Research report, which includes arguments as debatable as that AI agents will abandon cards to pay with stablecoins in Solana. Antonio Ortiz, technology analysts, has pointed it out precisely: part of the argument “it is from the first of Twitter AI-hype“. The idea that an agent will compare twenty food delivery apps vibecodeadas to find the cheapest one smells like a caricature of the future. But the panic is not irrational. It is precisely the panic of not knowing where the limit is. Why is it importantand. What has moved the market has not been so much the thesis about payments but the thesis about the destruction of value. And that is solid: many billions of dollars of market capitalization have been built on a single foundation: that humans are slow, impatient, forgetful and loyal out of inertia. That we do not compare prices. That we renew subscriptions that we do not use. And that we pay commissions that we do not negotiate. An AI agent has none of those weaknesses. And that changes everything. The backdrop. Citrini’s report comes at a time when the so-called “saaspocalypse“is no longer a metaphor. WSJ states that investors are terrified by the possibility that AI ends up doing the work that large software companies bill for today. ServiceNow, Salesforce, business management platforms… all built on the premise that companies need software for their employees to do their jobs. But… what happens when employees disappear? What if the software itself can be replicated in weeks with agentic coding tools? Citrini’s fiction begins exactly there, in early 2026, when a competent developer can reproduce the core functionality of a mid-market SaaS in a few weeks, and constructs a scenario of systemic collapse. The big question. The report’s most disturbing argument is that in every previous technological cycle, job destruction created new jobs that only humans could do. This time, AI is already occupying those new positions as well. If that’s true—if AI improves faster than workers can reorient themselves—the self-correcting mechanism that has always kept creative destruction from turning into outright destruction wouldn’t work. That is the scenario that the markets have discounted this week, even if only partially and speculatively thanks to a creepypasta financial. Yes, but. The scenario requires assuming a speed of adoption that is not guaranteed, a completely absent political response and a total absence of new economic sectors. None of the three conditions are set in stone. Furthermore, as Antonio points out, there is some collective hysteria in the reaction: each announcement or “scary story catches attention and moves investors.” Markets are trading in panic over the unknown. But there’s an important difference between saying “this scenario won’t happen” and saying “this scenario is impossible.” And that difference is exactly what has the market nervous. The alarm signal. The most striking thing this week is that a speculative text, written in economic science fiction format, has been enough to move billions in market capitalization. That says a lot about the state of certainty in the markets regarding AI: it is practically non-existent. Nobody really knows how much a company whose moat It is human friction in a world where that friction is disappearing. The canary is still alive. But investors have stopped trusting the canary. In Xataka | AI promised to revolutionize all sectors. It has only revolutionized programming while the rest is still waiting Featured image | Avery Evans

The US has cut programs for research and science. Europe and Spain are recruiting their scientists

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The Trump Administration has cut substantially the funds allocated to finance universities and, with them, the research projects that were being carried out, as as they point out from Nature. So American scientists have had no choice but to look for solutions to the draconian cuts in their country. Europe in general, and Spain in particular, they have become a magnet unexpected for all that talent, with programs that promise stability and million-dollar resources. Talent drain. According to information from the Ministry of Science, the call for the ATRAE program, aimed at incorporating researchers of international prestige with experience abroad in Spanish R&D centers, received 254 applications for the 2025 call. This implies an increase of 32% in applications, marking a historical record, because in 2023 no applications arrived from that country and in 2024 they only accounted for 16% of the total. 33.5% of them came from scientists from the US, which represents more than double that of previous editions. Finally, the scholarship program has selected 37 researchers in a program that allocates 38.9 million euros. Of the selected researchers, 56.7% come from American institutions and universities. Scientists who choose Spain. The Country collected the reasons why some of these researchers had decided to leave the US to continue their work in Spain. Vincenzo Calvanese, a 43-year-old Italian researcher who works at the Josep Carreras Institute in Barcelona after a decade in the United States, says that “many of my colleagues are having a very difficult time because of the political and economic events that affect science.” He encourages other colleagues to follow in his footsteps in Spain or other countries in Europesince the program represents “one of the few opportunities to ensure the future of research and some professional security.” ​Audrey Sawyer, a 43-year-old American hydrogeologist who has joined the research team at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, expresses a similar concern: “I have never seen a situation like this in the US. I feel very bad for the researchers and students, they are very talented and are facing serious challenges.” Although she applied before the most recent cuts, she clearly sees how federal funding affects areas like biomedicine and climate change. Europe: a troubled river gains fishermen. According to a survey made by Nature Among the US scientific community, 75% of researchers have seriously contemplated emigrating due to the cuts and layoffs promoted by Trump. In this scenario of uncertainty, Europe fights back taking out the nets to try to attract a good part of that talent dissatisfied with cuts in US research. The EU has doubled the funding of the European Research Council (ERC) with 500 million euros to provide it with more resources for these new researchers under the umbrella of the program Europe horizon. Spain distributes the incorporation of these new researchers in a balanced way: Catalonia receives 35.1% of the funding provided by these new scholarships, Madrid receives 29.7%, and entities such as the CSIC host 29.7% of the researchers. In this way, local research is reinforced with international talent, new students are trained and more funds are attracted from international competitions. The exodus is not only about science. The desire to leave the US does not only occur in the scientific field, some EU countries have doubled the number of residency applications and citizenship of US citizens. It is the case of Irelandwhich went from receiving 31,825 in all of 2024, to 3,692 applications during the month of February 2025 alone. Europe’s response to those requests has been different, tightening requirements to obtain residency or, as in the case of Spain, eliminating the “Golden Visa“which granted a residence permit in exchange of an economic investment. In Xataka | Of course digital nomads love Oviedo. It’s not because of the way of life: it’s because they charge 90,000 euros Image | Wikipedia, Unsplash (National Cancer Institute)

The cell phone on the nightstand is not “frying” your brain, but science is beginning to understand why it prevents you from resting

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It is practically a ritual today: connect your phone to the charger, set the alarm and leave it on the nightstand just 30 centimeters from the pillow to sleep. According to the data, for 95% of adultssleeping with your phone within reach is a logistical necessity; For a growing stream of longevity experts, It’s a biological miscalculation. because we rest less. To do this, we have analyzed the bibliography to know exactly the effect of having your cell phone next to you. The culprit confirmed. Before entering the swampy terrain of the possible problems that radiation can generate when it is around us, we must point out the “elephant in the room.” The most solid evidence we have today does not blame antennas for having a bad sleep, but to the screens and what we do with them. To give us an idea, a meta-analysis over 36,000 participants concluded that excessive use of smartphone increases the risk of having poor quality sleep by 228%. The double responsible. The first is the suppression of melatonin, since the blue light emitted by the LED panels of mobile phones tricks our brain making him believe that it is still day. This delays the release of melatonin and fragments the architecture of sleep. But not only the blue light is information, since responding to a WhatsApp or doing doomscrolling on TikTok before bed keeps the brain alert. A study of medical students suggested that nighttime cell phone use corresponded to poorer sleep. The radiation debate. It has always been a mantra for many: having your cell phone nearby is having a large source of radiation that causes many health problems. In this case, organizations such as the WHO or ARPANSA have traditionally maintained that evidence of damage from low-level electromagnetic fields is “insufficient.” However, it does not mean that it is non-existent. The most recent studies They are beginning to see the non-thermal effects that mobile phones have. One of the most interesting was done with baby monitors that have a frequency of 2.45 GHz, similar to Bluetooth or Wifi, to simulate environmental exposure. The result was that the exposed group, compared to the placebo, showed a worse subjective quality of sleep and alterations in heart rate variability, suggesting that sensitive people do notice the invisible “presence” of the electronic device nearby. Brain wave modulation. Other research on 5G signals found that exposure to 3.6 GHz waves affected sleep spindles during N2 phasethat is, light sleep that accounts for 50% of the total rest time. The curious thing about this study is that the effect depended on genetics: only carriers of certain variants of the CACNA1C gene showed alterations in the electroencephalogram. This qualifies the warnings of some experts, since radiation may not affect us all equally, but for a genetically predisposed subgroup, sleeping next to a continuous emission source could be fragmenting their N2 phase, crucial for memory consolidation. The habit factor. It is often cited Sinha’s studio to demonize radiation, but what this study really measured were habits in a sample of 566 participants. In this case, it was seen that those people with high mobile phone use took longer to fall asleep, their sleep was less efficient, and 22.6% reported worse quality of sleep. In this way, the conclusion was not that the waves prevented them from sleeping, but that the habit of having their cell phone nearby inevitably leads to using. If it’s on the table, you look at it. If you look at it, you become active. It is a behavioral rather than a radiological vicious circle. Hygiene protocol. The question in this case is inevitable: should we wrap the room in aluminum foil? It’s not necessary. In this case, physics works in our favor thanks to the inverse square law: the intensity of the radiation falls drastically with distance. That is why the most important thing is to move the device at least one meter away from the bed, since at this distance the exposure falls to negligible basal levels, making Sleeping with your cell phone under your pillow is the worst possible decision. If we want to go a little further, we can put it in airplane mode, although the best advice, as the Spanish Society of Neurology points out, is to have a sacred hour, where the recommendation is to leave the screens an hour before going to sleep. Images | Nubelson Fernandes In Xataka | We thought insomnia was just not being able to sleep. Now we know that there are five different disorders

We have been believing for years that intermittent fasting is the definitive weapon to lose weight. Science has another idea

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During the last years, the intermittent fasting has gone from being something exceptional to becoming a nutritional strategy that there is more and more talk and that it has more followers behind it. And it is no wonder, since the promise is quite seductive as it does not focus on what you eat, but on when you eat, activating different metabolic switches to accelerate fat burning. Although there are also detractors behind. New data. The Cochrane library, considered a great world reference, published a few days ago a great review about intermittent fasting that acts as a bucket of cold water, since it suggests that this diet does not offer superior benefits to conventional weight loss diets. The backup. We are not talking about a small study whose validity can be questioned, but in this case the Cochrane researchers analyzed 22 randomized controlled trials that added up to a total of 1,995 participants. overweight or obesity. The objective here was to compare different fasting modalities, such as going 16 hours without being able to eat with eight hours of eating, fasting on alternate days or 5:2 diet compared to classic calorie restriction or inaction. What they found is that, when pitting intermittent fasting against regular dietary advice, the difference in weight loss is virtually zero. The data. Getting into the matter, when intermittent fasting was compared With standard calorie-restricted diets, the mean difference in weight change was a minuscule -0.33%. This difference can translate into that intermittent fasting may result in little to no difference in weight loss with the traditional method. Regarding quality of life, such as the feeling of energy, no difference was seen and, regarding the levels of total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and triglycerides, fasting did not prove to be a panacea either, yielding results of “little or no difference” compared to the control diets. The small print. One of the most critical points of the Cochrane review is the certainty of the evidence, which they rated mostly as “low” or “very low.” This does not mean that the studies are poorly done, but rather that there are important limitations, such as risk bias, inconsistency in results, and lack of precision. But there is one fact that should worry anyone who decides to opt for this diet independently, without medical advice, since, although the evidence is uncertain, some studies pointed to associated side effects specifically to fasting. These include headaches, nausea, cold intolerance or even insomnia and lack of concentration. What is not yet known. Perhaps it is the most revealing thing about this scientific study, since there are still many unknowns surrounding intermittent fasting that invite further research. In this case, none of the 22 studies included data on “patient satisfaction,” which is important because we don’t know if people prefer to go hungry for a few hours in exchange for eating more later, or if they hate the process. And being comfortable with a diet is essential so that you don’t abandon it halfway through. In addition to this, none of the studies pointed to the relationship that may exist in chronic diseases that require significant dietary control, such as diabetes, and which is very common in the population. But one of the big problems in science today is duration, since most studies lasted less than 12 months. We don’t know if fasting is sustainable or safe beyond a year. It is not a miracle diet. What we do know is that intermittent fasting works, but the key point is that It is not superior to the tools we already had as a calorie restriction accompanied by a balanced diet and exercise. For the average patient, this is actually good news: it means that the The best diet is the one you can stick to. If someone finds it easier to skip breakfast with a 16:8 fast than to count calories at each meal, fasting is a valid tool. But if fasting causes headaches, you’re not missing out on any “magic” metabolic benefits from eating three times a day. Although in this process the most important thing is always to be advised by personnel who are qualified in nutrition to be able to have the best dietary plan, to have real objectives and, above all, not to get frustrated along the way. Images | VD Photography In Xataka | We believed that a vegetarian diet guaranteed longevity. In extreme old age, the data says just the opposite

Science had been looking for an alternative to laboratory mice for years without success. Until he found the moths

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In the world of science, the mouse has been for decades the undisputed king of the laboratory. However, it is an expensive, slow and, above all, ethically complex reign. That is why we have been looking for alternatives for years, and the answer may not be in a silicon chipbut an insect that you have probably seen eating the wax of a beehive. The advance. This is what researchers at the University of Exeter have arrived at, who have achieved a milestone that promises to change the rules of the game in the fight against superbacteria: They have genetically “hacked” dinner moth larvae to function as real-time biological indicators. The most impressive thing is that they even have a very visual indicator: they shine when you get sick and go off when the medicine is working correctly. The biological traffic light. The study, published this week in Naturedetails how the research team has achieved what seemed impossible: applying tools of genetic editing advanced these moths with unprecedented precision. And I know this is very important, since using insects to model human diseases had limitations, but this team has combined two key techniques. The techniques. The first of them is the system PiggyBac to be able to insert genes that produce fluorescent proteins into these moths, so they have basically gone from having larvae to biological “neon lights.” In this way, if bacteria or fungi are injected, fluorescence makes it possible to monitor the infection in vivo under the microscope. In addition, the famous technique was also included CRISPR-Cas9 to deactivate specific genes in the insect’s body. This is a tremendously positive thing, as it allows scientists to manipulate the larva’s immune system to see how it reacts to different pathogens, mimicking complex human conditions. The key data. The bottom line is that the modified larvae allow us to see if an antibiotic is working in real time. The indicator we have is fluorescence, which if it decreases indicates that the bacteria is dying from the antibiotic and the larva is surviving. All this in a visual, fast and cheap way. Why the moth. It may sound strange to compare a moth with a mammal such as the mouse, which may be more like us, but the Galleria mellonella He has an ace up his sleeve: your body temperature. Unlike the fruit fly, these larvae can breed and survive comfortably at 37°C, the average human body temperature, which is crucial because many human pathogens only activate their virulence genes at that temperature. Furthermore, their innate immune system is surprisingly similar to that of mammals in terms of structure and function of phagocytes, the cells that literally ‘eat’ pathogens that enter the body. Furthermore, with this animal model the use of 10,000 mice per year in the United Kingdom alone can be avoided. Against the clock of the resistance. The context of this advance is not trivial, since we are facing a race against the resistance of bacteria to our antibiotics. We need at this moment test thousands of new compounds fastand doing it in mice is a brutal bottleneck both because of the time it takes and the ethical questions that arise. On the other hand, these transgenic larvae allow for massive screening. Instead of waiting weeks to see results in mice, scientists here can test hundreds of compounds in larvae and get immediate visual readings on toxicity and efficacy. Images | Wikipedia Kalyan Sak In Xataka | Researchers removed Instagram and TikTok from 300 young people to see if their anxiety decreased. The results speak for themselves

science has already achieved it

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The idea of ​​controlling what we dream or using downtime to solve complex problems may sound like science fiction in fairly iconic movies like Inception. However, the “dream engineering“has ceased to be a fantasy since science confirms that not only can we influence the content of our dreams, but doing so can improve our mental health and cognitive ability. The device that whispers. The technique is called Directed Dream Incubation (TDI) and the most recent results, published in 2025, suggest it could be the key to treat chronic nightmares and increase our sense of control over the subconscious. The key is that, unlike spontaneous lucid dreams, this technique uses technology to detect specific phases of sleep and send auditory stimuli. A recent study published in Sleep Advancesput this system to the test with surprising results. And using a device called Dormiothe researchers monitored the sleep phase N1that is, the transition stage between when we are awake and asleep and which lasts approximately between 1 and 7 minutes. How it was done. The experiment was simple but effective, since the participants only had to lie down and take a nap. At that moment, upon detecting the onset of sleep, the device the instruction whispered “Think of a tree,” and then the subject had to be awakened briefly to ask for a verbal report and then he was allowed to sleep. The result was overwhelming: 92% of the participants incorporated the “tree” theme in their dreams. Subjects reported everything from visions of forests and roots to more abstract transformations related to vegetation. Control as therapy. What was truly revolutionary about the 2025 study wasn’t just getting people to dream about trees, but what happened afterward. The researchers here discovered a significant increase in Dream Self-Efficacy (DSE), which is nothing more than an individual’s belief in their own ability to control or influence their dreams. Having this sense of being able to control your sleep is crucial for treating disorders such as trauma-related nightmares that are common in post-traumatic stress disorder. Solving problems. Although the study of Sleep Advances focuses on mental health, other parallel investigations explore the productive aspect. In these experiments, puzzles were used that are difficult for anyone to solve, and that is why while people were sleeping they were induced to dream about this puzzle. The result was that 42% of participants Those who were induced to dream about the puzzle managed to solve it when they woke up, compared to only 17% of those who did not dream about the problem. This suggests that the brain, when given the right stimulus, can continue to process logical and creative information in the background, a phenomenon that technology now allows us to systematize. Sleep therapy. Although the aforementioned study had a preliminary sample of 25 people (almost half of whom suffered from frequent nightmares), the data point to a paradigm shift. Until now, we slept “blind”, but tools like Dormio and protocols like TDI suggest a future where sleep is not a passive period, but an active state that we can program. Whether it is to overcome trauma, as they suggest, or to find the solution to a creative problem, technology is beginning to illuminate the darkness of our dreams. Images | iam_os In Xataka | If you fall asleep in less than five minutes, you don’t have a “superpower”: it’s a warning signal from your brain

Science and longevity experts are clear about what time you should wake up

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For years, the culture of effort and extreme productivity has sold us the “five o’clock club“like him Holy Grail of successtaking as examples to CEOs, influencers or personal development gurus who point out the need to wake up at five in the morning. However, science focused on aging has a very different message: waking up too early is not only not productive, but it can shave years off our life. The experts. Sebastian La Rosaa doctor specializing in longevity, already pointed out that the optimal time to wake up is in a very specific window: between 6:45 and 7:00 in the morning. And the reality is that the scientific literature supports its claims based on clinical experience quite well. Without going any further, an analysis that lasted for 20 years in large groups of people revealed that the lowest point of mortality risk is exactly around seven in the morning. From this point on, extremes (as often happens in biology) are quite expensive. The extremes. Get up constantly after 8 in the morning raises the risk of mortality from all causes by a staggering 39%. But being a night owl and waking up super early every day isn’t good for your health either. This is what they saw from the data extracted from the UK Biobankwith a sample of more than 433,000 people, showing that the evening chronotype (going to bed late and getting up late) has a 10% higher risk of mortality total compared to early risers, impacting more harshly on people over 63 years of age. More tests. On the other hand, a massive study from the University of Exeter found that people who wake up naturally between five and seven in the morning reduce their risk of premature mortality by between 20 and 25%. This fits perfectly with the recommendation to go to sleep between 10:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. to achieve 7 or 8 hours of restful sleep and protect, in the process, cardiovascular health. The golden rule. While 7:00 a.m. seems like the evolutionary magic hour, researchers at Harvard and other pioneering institutions have reached an even more important conclusion: consistency is the most important factor. In this way, having irregular sleep schedules, such as going to bed and getting up at very different times each day, increases the risk of mortality between 20 and 48%. In fact, the regularity of the sleep-wake cycle has been shown to be a stronger predictor of mortality than the total number of hours slept. This forces the scientific consensus to establish that sleeping between 6 and 8 hours is ideal, with exactly 7 hours being the figure linked to greater survival in large population cohorts. But if we choose to sleep less than seven hours or more than eight hours, the body can become unbalanced and increase the risk of death. Hacking the internal clock. Behind all these statistics there are pure cellular mechanics. In animal models, it has been proven that having “high amplitude” circadian rhythms, with very marked differences between daytime alertness and nighttime rest, directly correlates with greater longevity. When this biological clock is altered by living behind sunlight, we alter metabolic pathways critical for aging such as via mTOR, sirtuins or IGF-1. Exposing yourself to natural light as soon as you wake up around seven in the morning is the signal that the brain needs to set this complex hormonal mechanism in motion, mitigating oxidative damage and preventing cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Images | muntazar mansory In Xataka | If you fall asleep in less than five minutes, you don’t have a “superpower”: it’s a warning signal from your brain

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