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“True friendship is like phosphorescence”

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I don’t know who you are or where you’re reading from, but I have bad news: it’s very (very) unlikely that you’ll win the lottery. The more you try, the better; but statistics say that your options they are very low. What you will have to deal with throughout life is to deal with complicated situations: duels, breakups, disappointments and a wide variety of emotions that will drag your morale to the ground. It will happen to you, me and the neighbor on the fifth floor, just as it happened more than eight decades ago to Rabindranath Thakur ‘Tagore’ (1861-1941), one of the Bengali literati and thinkers most important of all time. Throughout his life Tagore shone as an intellectual and achieved great achievements, including the Nobel Prize in Literature 1913. He also had the fortune of growing up in a cultured home, receiving a good education and traveling from a very young age. None of this, however, saved him from facing his own dark clouds in life: he was widowed at the age of 40 and several of his children died when they were very young. Not to mention that he had to live through the turbulent start of the 20th century. That’s why he knew well what comforts when one faces low hours. And that is why this phrase of his resonates in 2026 with a special force: “True friendship is like phosphorescence, it shines best when everything has gone dark.” What Tagore perhaps could not imagine is to what extent his words go beyond poetry to fully enter into the field of science. Over the last decades researchers from all over the world have tried to clarify what makes us feel happy, an ambitious multidisciplinary undertaking that has yielded results that would probably make the Indian writer nod. It’s not just that authentic friendship “shines” in the face of adversity. Thanks to it, we do it, with advantages both emotionally and physiologically. One of the tests more resounding the one who maybe is leaves her the most curious study developed by Harvard University, an investigation conducted with hundreds of subjects over more than seven decades to understand how people are formed and, above all, what leads us to be happy. For this purpose, in 1938, researchers selected a group of more than 700 young people (included everyone from college students to teenagers from deprived neighborhoods of Boston) and dedicated themselves to monitoring their physical and mental health for decades. Over time the study became more and more complex, expanding and including new generations. In fact it has become one of the experiments longest in historywith more than 80 years of development. Among those original ‘guinea pigs’ were people who succeeded in the business world, fulfilled their dreams of becoming a doctor, or enjoyed successful careers in the field of law. Others did not do so well in life: they fell into alcoholism or ended up developing diseases. What did their trajectories show? “That our relationships and how happy we are in them have a great influence on our health,” explains Robert Waldingerdirector of the study, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School. “Taking care of your body is important, but taking care of your relationships is also a form of self-care. I think that’s the revelation.” The experiment proves that, more than money or famewhat helps us most to enjoy satisfactory lives are “close relationships”, bonds that also have important advantages for our health. “They help delay mental and physical decline and are better predictors of a long and happy life than social class, IQ or even genes,” they explain from The Harvard Gazette. This maxim is valid for all members of the study, from well-off university students to young people from depressed areas. Experts identified a “strong correlation” between the prosperity of the study participants and “their family and friendship relationships.” “When we put together everything we knew about them at age fifty, it wasn’t their cholesterol levels in middle age that predicted how they were going to age. It was how satisfied they were with their relationships. The people who were most satisfied at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80,” adds Waldinger.. It may sound abstract, but as explains the psychiatrist to the BBC, there is a direct relationship between the quality of our friendships and our body. We live surrounded by stress, situations that tend to increase our heart rate and blood pressure. There’s nothing strange about it. It is a natural, physiological response, similar to the one called “fight or flight reaction”. The problem is that it is common for us to carry this state of nervousness, maintaining high levels of cortisol and inflammation, which affects our bodies. A good social network can be the perfect antidote to avoid this. “If something happens to me that has bothered me, that is stressful, I can go home and talk to my wife or call a friend. If they are good listeners I can feel my stress level go down. But if I don’t have anyone like that, if I am isolated and alone, what we believe is that the body remains in a low degree of ‘fight or flight reaction,’” reflect Waldinger. In other words: friendship is an antidote, while loneliness and isolation contribute to our state of stress. The Harvard study is not the only study that agrees with Tagore about the importance of friendship and to what extent it can help us through anxiety. Another researcher who knows the phenomenon well is Robin Dunbara renowned anthropologist from the University of Oxford who in the 90s presented a theory that maintains that humans cannot maintain more than 150 relationships simultaneously. Whether or not you share that idea (especially in the age of social media), Dunbar defends the healing power of friendship, something he maintained even in a trial from 2023: “Along with quitting smoking, the best thing we can do to increase our life … Read more

We have been adoring bananas all our lives for their potassium. Science points to raisins as the true “super snack”

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In recent years it is easy to see on social networks like TikTok or Instagram different ‘specialists’ in sports or nutrition bombarding with different food supplementswith the best ‘super foods’ for good nutrition and more. However, in a corner of the pantries we may have a food that we despise, but that can give us many benefits in our daily diet: raisins. A great ally. A product that may be hated by many people because of its texture, but has been introduced by different nutrition experts as a very interesting option. The reason lies in the dehydration process, since raisins surpass very popular fresh fruits such as strawberries or bananas in nutritional density. The why. When we remove the water from a grape, what is left is a bomb of bioactive nutrients. This is what verified databases like the USDA and FatSecret point to, since a standard serving of 40 grams of raisins provides about 120-129 calories, between 1 and 2 grams of fiber and around 300 mg of potassium. And this is where the odious comparison comes in with the historical king of potassium and the one almost baptized as the treatment for soreness after sports: the banana. On paper, a medium banana has around 350-425 mg of potassium, while raisins, being dehydrated, They can reach 860 mg of potassium per 100 grams. In this way, we are talking about a brutal concentration of minerals that are key for the nervous and muscular system. What does science say? Far from being a simple grandmother’s remedy, the impact of raisins on our health is widely documented in different articles. One of these is an analysis published in 2017 which brought together almost 22,500 adults and revealed large numbers. Specifically, regular raisin consumers had 34% more fiber in their diet, 16% more potassium and on top of that they consumed 17% less added sugars. The results here were a 39% reduction in the rate of obesity and a 54% lower risk of metabolic syndrome. Effect on pressure. Beyond being a food that can be very attractive to gym lovers with the aim of alleviating soreness and also reducing sugar consumption, it can be ideal for our blood pressure. Here science has been able to see that the phenols and polyphenols of raisins have a powerful antioxidant effect, and that is why in patients with diabetes and hypertension, consume three servings a day manages to reduce blood pressure between 5 and 8 mmHg. But it doesn’t stop there, since it can also lower glucose levels after eating something and reduce very important inflammatory markers. At the digestive level, a 14-day trial showed that the fiber in this food acts as a powerful prebiotic, promoting the growth of butyrate-producing bacteria in our intestinal microbiota, which are known for their anti-inflammatory effect. Perfect fuel. Right now in the sports world there are a large number of products that promise to be a great pre-workout with artificial energy gels. In this case they have a moderate glycemic index, which translates into having sustained energy during training without the dreaded “bird”. But science pointed out, after analyzing triathletes, that taking raisins before exercising prevents DNA damage much more effectively than consuming equivalent amounts of pure glucose. Although beyond muscle there are other benefits, such as improvements in spatial memorywhich justify the famous Spanish saying: “For memory, corners of raisins”. Something that also seems like it belongs to older people, but that science has proven. It still has sugar. Clearly, raisins have many benefits, but it doesn’t mean you have to have a free bar of this food. And it should not be considered that way because in its composition it has natural sugars in the order of 24 to 28 grams per 40 gram serving. Although it does not behave in the body the same as white coffee sugar, since thanks to its matrix of fiber and phytochemicals, excessive consumption can cause glycemic spikes. That is why the recommendation that can be made is clear: moderation is the key. Images | Anshu A Jorge Alberto Vega Barrera In Xataka | Food has been filled with contradictory messages: a sports nutritionist helps us understand what’s behind it

Mexico has built a true Latin dubbing empire. And now it’s going to protect you from AI by law

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Mexico produces 65% of the dubbing in Latin America. And until now, no rule prevented an AI from copying the voice of its actors without paying or asking for permission. The government of Claudia Sheinbaum has presented this past February 13, 2026, an initiative to legally recognize the human voice as an artistic tool that cannot be cloned. If it prospers in CongressMexico would become something more than a government that looks after the interests of the actors: it would also be a world pioneer in regulation of voice cloning in a cultural setting. Korea is to blame. The trigger for this reaction was not a native series, but some korean dramas. In May 2024, social media users shared fragments of Korean Prime Video series (‘My Boy is Cupid’, ‘The Beat of My Heart’ and ‘Field to Love’) denouncing an unusual feature: the dubbing into Latin Spanish sounded mechanical, robotic and without nuances. And there was also something very suspicious: there were no credits for voice actors anywhere. Without giving explanations, Amazon removed those dubbed versions and did not confirm the origin of the voices. The straw that broke the camel’s back. It was a turning point: the voice actors guild had been denouncing for months how voice actors from all over the continent were losing jobs in favor of AI tools trained, in addition, with their own voices. Some actors, in fact, denounced the Kafkaesque situation that his voice was the one who had replaced him on a YouTube channel for which he worked. Point of no return. In March 2025, Prime Video announced its AI dubbing pilot program in English and Latin Spanish. According to Amazonare twelve series that would not have been dubbed if it had not been for AI, presenting it as an opportunity for series to be seen that would otherwise remain unpublished. The suspicion of Latin professionals, as we have seen, went in a diametrically opposite direction. To calm things down, Amazon assured that localization professionals would monitor and correct the dubbed episodes with AI. The protest. Mexico produces around 65% of the Latin Spanish dubbing destined for Latin America, according to data from the Mexican Association of Commercial Broadcasters (AMELOC), and has some thirty-five active studios with approximately 1,500 actors working. This human force was manifested last July in Mexico under the slogan “AI does not replace.” Among other requests, it was demanded that the voice be recognized as biometric data, at the level of a fingerprint. The purpose is to prevent its use without consent. The proposal. According to the specialized media CO/AISince the summer of 2025, the National Copyright Institute (INDAUTOR) and the Legal Department of the Presidency have worked with more than 128 organizations to build a legal framework always in touch with the union. The resulting text reforms two existing laws: the Federal Labor Law incorporates dubbing actors and announcers as formal workers in the cultural sector, equating them to singers; and the Federal Copyright Law recognizes the human voice as a “unique and unrepeatable” artistic tool That is, any use of it through AI requires express authorization from the owner, plus financial compensation. None of this prohibits dubbing with AI, it only protects the voices that train or replicate the model with mandatory contracts. Missing. The initiative must pass the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate before becoming law, and it will take a while: the Mexican Congress accumulates proposals since 2020. There are more than sixty initiatives related to AI that have not yet received the corresponding legal response. Of course, this one seems to go faster: in November 2025, the Congress of Mexico City had already approved a similar opinionwhich reformed five federal laws. Mexico, spearhead. This beginning of regulation in Mexico is an advance of what other countries are trying to regulate since 2023. For example, in 2024 in Tennessee, Governor Bill Lee signed the ELVIS Act to explicitly add voice among the attributes protected against unauthorized use with AI, something new in the US. The standard also holds responsible platforms that distribute tools whose main purpose is to generate voice replicas without authorization. California and New York have tried to regulate not the technology, but the contracts signed around these activities. However, the limitations of these laws were soon demonstrated: in July last year, a New York judge did not rule in favor of two voice actors who discovered that their voices had been marketed as AI products. As it had not been made with a fixed recording, but with attributes such as tone, timbre or cadence, the court dismissed the claims. That ruling is the type of thing that the new Mexican legislation will try to avoid, and provide more robust protection to artists. Header | Amin Asbaghipour in Unsplash

Japan has been wanting fewer tourists for years. Now he fears China is making his wishes come true

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Japan has been choked by foreign tourism. And it is understandable. The weakness of the yen, the reactivation of demand after the pandemic stop and the enormous popularity that the country has achieved on networks has triggered its flow of visitors to record levelsstirring up the debate on he oversight and generating discomfort in some particularly congested destinations, such as Kyoto, nara or Osaka. To stop it, there is already talk of a tax increase. There are even cities looking for ways to reduce the flow of international tourists. Now, for reasons that have little or nothing to do with the tourism market, Japan is encountering the collapse of demand in its big market: China. The question is whether that is a blessing or a threat to your economy. Pack of tourists. The data is incontestable. Japan has become one of the most popular destinations among those planning their vacations. Last year the country received 42.7 million of foreign visitors, an absolute record that shatters the data from 2024, when it fell just short of 37 million. Beyond the year-on-year comparison, the data is interesting for two reasons. First, because never before had the Japan Tourism Organization (ONTJ) counted more than 40 million visitors annual. Second, because the data leaves the 31.9 million of 2019, the last year before the pandemic, far behind. If nothing changes, the Government plans to reach the 60 million this decade, which will translate into a powerful injection of resources into the Japanese economy. In 2025 alone, foreign travelers spent more than $60 billion. More than money. The problem is that this flow of tourists not only translates into full planes, hotels with the sign ‘no places left’ and hoteliers and merchants satisfied with their sales. The international tourism boom has generated tensions in some destinations especially congested, leaving almost almost surreal episodes, such as the one lived in Kyoto. There the authorities have had to prohibit “paparazzi tourists” from accessing one of the most emblematic points of the city. The reason: so that they do not harass the geishas. It is not the only proof of the tensions that are emerging due to tourist saturation. In Fujikawaguchiko the authorities, unable to contain the hordes of travelers eager to “hunt” the best selfiethey chose to install a fence that blocks the views of Fuji. In Fujiyoshida they just canceled your festival Sakura because it saturates the city with visitors who clog traffic, sneak into homes and leave trash in parks. And in Yamanashi they decided years ago start charging to ascend Fuji to preserve the mythical mountain. And the Taiwan crisis arrived. Whims of geopolitics and international diplomacy, Japan has just found that this record flow of visitors could receive a severe setback. And all on account of something that has little or nothing to do with the tourist market: Taiwan. To understand it, we have to go back to November 7, when the Prime Minister of Japan, Sanae Takaichi, warned during a parliamentary debate that Japan would not hesitate to mobilize its self-defense forces in case China entered Taiwan by force. Although the Japanese Government assures that its position remains the same as always, the truth is that Takaichi’s words broke the “strategic ambiguity” that Japan has maintained for decades. And that was not liked one bit in China. The relationship between Beijing and Tokyo became strained to such an extent that the Asian giant responded with more than complaints diplomatic: canceled concerts by Japanese artists, postponed the premiere of movies, he claimed the pandas on loan to Japanese zoos and restricted its valuable rare earth exports. What does it have to do with tourism? That in its response to Japan, Beijing also played one of its great economic assets: tourism. The Chinese authorities they advised its citizens to avoid Japan and even canceled dozens of routes airlines with the country. In November the BBC reported that some Chinese airlines were offering their customers refunds for their flights to Japan. Such a movement would not have much importance if it were not for the fact that China is one of the main sources of the Japanese tourism sector. The Asian giant is one of its big markets issuers, along with Korea. According to the Japan National Tourism Organization, in 2024 China was the second largest source of tourists visiting Japan. concentrated about 19% of all demand, only behind Korea (24%). The data is also completed with the 7.3% of Hong Kong and the high weight that Taiwan also has in Japanese tourism. The flow from the Asian giant is key, however, for another reason: as remember The New York TimesChina not only moves many tourists but its tourists spend a lot in Japan. Goodbye Chinese tourists. Although the open conflict between China and Japan is recent, its effects have not taken long to be noticed in the tourism industry. TNYT assures that in December the flow of Chinese travelers already plummeted by 45% compared to the same month in 2024. And the situation does not seem to be improving in the coming months: Japan has fallen on the list of the most coveted destinations for the Chinese to enjoy their Lunar New Year holidays. There are those who already warn that Japanese hotels will welcome 60% less of Chinese. Why is it important? Beyond the percentages, this ‘puncture’ in the Chinese market represents a setback for a sector (Japanese tourism) that until recently seemed unbeatable. Despite how popular Japan continues to be in the rest of the world and the record data it is collecting, its balance of incoming tourist spending registered a drop of 2.8% during the last three months of 2025. It is not a high percentage, but it represents the first decline in more than four years. In November, Bloomberg already warned that the diplomatic row with China threatened to cost Japan’s tourism sector 1.2 billion in income. If the data were not conclusive in itself, it comes at a … Read more

While the whole world looks at oil, Venezuela’s true treasure is hidden in the basements of London: its gold

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Perhaps the great treasure of Venezuela not oil. In fact, since the United States attacked Caracasa series of theories have begun to be heard loudly that have a common denominator: the greatest Venezuelan loot is thousands of kilometers from the nation, under the soil of the capital of the United Kingdom. The gold trapped in London. Yes, under the streets of the cityin the vaults of the Bank of England, remain immobilized about 31 tons of gold belonging to Venezuela, an asset that in 2020 was valued around 1.4 billion pounds and that today it is worth much more after the strong rebound of the metal price. The capture of Nicolás Maduro for the United States has returned This issue is brought to the international forefront, reopening a question that has been without a clear answer for years: who really has the right to control these reserves. Although global attention often focuses on Venezuelan oil, gold represents about 15% of the country’s foreign reserves and has become a key piece of a political, legal and geopolitical pulse that far transcends Caracas. Recognition and blocking. The origin of the blockage dates back to 2018after a disputed presidential election and the tightening of sanctions promoted by Trump during his first term. The United Kingdom, along with dozens of countries, stopped recognizing Maduro as legitimate president and, under pressure from the Venezuelan opposition, refused to authorize the repatriation of the gold, alleging the risk that it would be used to prop up an authoritarian regime or directly diverted. Added to this, as later revealed former national security advisor John Bolton, an express request from Washington for London to maintain the blockade, which placed the British central bank and the Government at the center of a battle that mixed international law, sanctions and diplomacy. Bank of England A judicial labyrinth. In 2020, Caracas went to court British to claim the gold, arguing that they needed those funds to deal with the pandemic. However, the process became complicated when Juan Guaidó, then recognized by London As interim president, he also claimed ownership of the reserves. The litigation led to a legal tangle about who the Bank of England should obey, a question that remains unresolved even after Guaidó lost international recognition. The result is a legal limbo in which the gold remains immobilized, without any of the parties being able to dispose of it. Piracy accusations. From the Chavista environment, the retention of gold was denounced as an act of “piracy”an accusation made at the time by Delcy Rodríguez, which was later marred by the scandal known as Delcygate following his alleged secret trip to Madrid in 2020 despite an EU entry ban and the alleged sale of Venezuelan bullion. Although Rodríguez has adopted a more conciliatory tone After the fall of Maduro, offering cooperation to the United States, the British position remains firm: Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper has reiterated that London maintains political pressure because it considers it key to force a democratic transition, even underlining the formal independence of the Bank of England in the management of assets. The dangerous precedent. The Venezuelan case is not an exception, but rather part of a trend increasingly controversial: the immobilization of sovereign reserves in a context of growing geopolitical confrontation. We have told it: after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Western countries froze about 300,000 million of dollars from the Russian central bank, largely deposited in Eurocleara measure that has generated tensions with Moscow and has revived the debate about the security of keeping assets abroad. Historically, these sanctions have been rare but not unprecedented, from the Soviet confiscation of Romanian gold in 1918 to blockades of countries like Iran or North Korea in the second half of the 20th century. Global distrust. Thus, the climate of uncertainty is leading many countries to rethink where do you keep your reservesdriving repatriation movements and fueling the recent gold rally as an active refuge. For analysts and central banks, the Venezuelan episode is a clear warning of how politics can interfere with assets that were traditionally considered untouchable. While the Bank of England remains officially silent (and many ingots), Venezuelan gold remains buried under London, converted into a symbol of an increasingly international financial order. more fragile and politicized. Image | Bank of England, Eluveitie In Xataka | The mission in Caracas revealed that the best kept secret in the US is not a drone: it is called DAP and you will not see it in the movies In Xataka | The attack on Venezuela has recovered an uncomfortable truth: that it would not have happened to North Korea for a very simple reason

We’ve been telling ourselves for 100 years that breakfast is the “most important meal of the day.” The problem is that it is not true

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They’ve been hammering us with that slogan for so long that it should be true. That is, if from different speakers they proclaim that under no circumstances should we skip breakfast, it will be because it is lunch. most important of the day. But how we already pointed herethe studies on which they have relied to affirm this are conclusive. It also does not seem true that it is good to have breakfast to “start the day with energy”, nor that it reduces our appetite throughout the day. So who and why started proclaiming it? The history of breakfast is like many other social uses, something that has more to do with the roots of the context from which it came than with an innate need of our body to practice it. Several things came together between the 19th and 20th centuries so that breakfast became established as just another meal in Western societies. The first, the change of production model. Before, workers, mostly rural and dedicated to work in the fields, ate breakfast quickly whatever was out therelike last night’s leftovers. It wasn’t so much a meal as it was an appetizer. With the arrival of cities and the industrial revolution, work schedules were established. The workers, who spent the entire day working, saw the benefit of eating something before going to work. From 1822 onwards And here things started to get interesting. Progressively, the more money American workers were able to earn, they ate more meat. It was the star product to eat in the morning. They could prepare a meatloaf, a chicken or beef dish in the same way they would at lunch or dinner time. And all of this cooked with butter. The dyspepsia or indigestion became a public health problem on the level that obesity is now. The people of North America ate poorly, foods that were too heavy and altered their intestinal flow. People who needed to eat very well to go to work. The 19th century was also the time when western doctors They began to worry about nutritional health, germs and, later, vitamins. Thus, while the newspapers and magazines harshly criticized the problems caused by dyspepsiathe industry and the market naturally looked for a substitute. There came muesli and cereals, then minimally processed flour or corn that in many cases had to be soaked before consumption. The initial flavor and appearance of the cereals was that of military porridgebut they were attractive to a large part of the consumers: it seemed like a “health” productnot like those red meats that prevented good circulation. Furthermore, it was a food that I didn’t need to be preparedas easy as putting them together with a little milk so you can swallow them and go to work. Replacing big meals in the morning with a light product The health of the population improved, which is why many doctors and cereal merchants used this slogan to expand their consumption: breakfast is the most important meal of the dayand that is why you should take care of yourself early in the morning. Is practically the same idea of ​​health that whole grain houses continue to sell us so that we can lose weight. Corn flakes arrive Breakfast then began to be seen as the solution to all the problems. For the little ones, without a good breakfast they would not be able to reach their maximum level of effort at school. Also alcoholism It was caused by lack of food in the morning. According to certain prestigious doctors of the period, morning hunger encouraged the employee to begin to abuse the bottle until he became dependent on it. Some vendors went even further and talked about how their cereals They could cure malaria and appendicitis. Already then the cereal was promoted as “organic” foodAs we see today, some products are sold more expensive and not necessarily with better nutritional results. But the beneficial halo of the cereal remained and extended to the breakfast ritual, whether it was processed wheat, fruits or other foods. breakfast had come to stay. From the 19th and 20th centuries we move to the 21st century, when the saying, never sufficiently proven by science, has already been established as an immovable truth. Cereals have long been no longer tasteless porridge but small ones processed sugar balls in boxes with smiling animals that bill billions of dollars a year. And there is another agent that, for years, has been interested in making sure you remember that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” and, therefore, eat quite well: fast food chains. Some essays have pointed out how the marketing of companies like McDonalds or Starbucks is being much more aggressive in morning products such as McMuffins or cheesecakes than in foods at lunch or dinner time. According to them, the new big dispute is here. While many workers have already decided on their meal locations, there is an increase in people who is going to breakfast at chains outside the house. And how mornings are the time for routinehumans tend to choose one place or another to have our breakfast and not leave the pattern except in case of emergency. If McDonalds gets you to go to their establishment in the morning, in a way you are marrying them gastronomically. And, well, you know, it’s the first meal, so it’s okay if it’s a little excessive, you’ll burn it off throughout the day (this, as we already explained, it is not completely contrasted). Thus, from a creditable beginning in which citizens’ nutrition was improved, we have moved to a point where the industry has been adapting to our tastes and modifying our diet to the point of harming us all. Although, if we think about it, the phrase is still as true now as it was 300 years ago: “breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” It is the most important. And the most discussed. In Xataka | We knew … Read more

“Cozy games” were going to save us from stress and productivity. They have ended up being true slaves of leisure

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The promise of relaxing and clearing your mind for a few hours is what attracts us of the cozy games: those games that surround us with cute little animals, calm us with a comforting visual palette and give us repetitive and friendly tasks that make us escape from stress. It all seems very bucolic; You inherit a farm, plant flowers, decorate rooms or make dream furniture, with the promise of escaping for a few hours from the daily routine. However, that kind of digital refuge has become the materialization of what you wanted to escape from; in a second Google Calendar full of meetings, in a clone of your 9 to 5 job. And ‘Tiny Bookshop’ reaffirms it to us. Released this summer,’Tiny Bookshop‘ quickly became a hit within the crowded category cozy. The premise is clear: you arrive in a small, charming town with your new traveling bookstore project, which you can decorate with hundreds of possibilities. Through your relationship with the neighbors you manage to sell and recommend a large number of books and, in turn, discover all the secrets of the town. This entire initial point is more than striking for fans of the genre (like yours truly). After more hours than I would like to admit, I realized that I had fallen into the gaming trap again. cozy: dedicate hours and hours at a job. Underneath the adorableness of being able to paint everything in pastel tones or recommend ‘Jane Eyre’ to your clients, in the end you find that you have been searching for objects for a while to increase your sales, check the opening hours for the next day and be on the lookout to replenish the shelves with the right genre. You can call this cozybut I call it emulating another workday; and what’s worse, enjoying it. Recommend all kinds of books at ‘Tiny Bookshop’ At the beginning of the 2010s it became quite fashionable, sponsored by the gurus of Silicon Valleya trend called “gamification of work“Through video game or board game mechanics, missions, points or rewards were added within the daily routine of monotonous work tasks. It is worth asking if the cozy games They have done the opposite path, “trafficking” video games. It is true that, as is often the case with these cozy gamesit’s easy to have fun with them and immerse yourself fully in the story. The interactions are adorable, the characters are cute and they have that air of “afternoon movie” that makes them irresistible; but in the end we cannot ignore the fact that we are replicating tasks that we are supposed to escape from, such as spending hours and hours working. And yes, it all depends on the type of player you are and how you manage the objectives of the game, but the cozy games They rarely have to do with something comfortable or warm. We’ve romanticized even paying a mortgage We are not talking about a specific thing that happens with this new release, completing or performing the daily tasks of this style of games can be the least relaxing thing there is. With the pinnacle of the cozy‘stardew valley‘, the day doesn’t last long between milking the cows, collecting the eggs, making jam and going to the mine to get objects. Furthermore, as if it were real life itself, after all these tasks, you have to put on a good face and interact with your neighbors. Something similar happens with another of the big names in the category such as ‘Animal Crossing‘: you have to give objects to your island companions, cut down trees, plant flowers, fish and be attentive to the day the character who is in charge of buying your collection arrives, in order to get money and pay the mortgage. Yes, a mortgage on a beautiful house, but Tom Nook does not forgive the deadlines. After all this, it would be interesting to check the players’ heart rate when their character goes to sleep after completing all those tasks. Spend the day cutting down trees in ‘Animal Crossing’ By becoming something more mainstream and produce some sales more than substantial Since its rise in the pandemic, there are countless games that adopt the “cozy” to capture the public, even when its dynamics move away from what characterizes the genre. It is worth asking if within this label, the greatest exponents should not be games like ‘Abzu‘ either ‘Unpacking‘, where the “you don’t have to do anything” is strictly followed and the objectives do not have a timer. The contemplative and the mechanical is what is essential in these examples, honoring that part “cozy” of mental refuge with peace, serenity and tasks that are repeated over and over again. In fact, there is even metacriticism within this world. ‘Wanderstop‘, a tea shop simulator created by the visionary mind behind ‘The Stanley Parable‘, Davey Wreden. The game ironizes this fact with a character who invites you to attend to customer requests when it seems right to you, without rushing, because the last thing the protagonist needs is it’s more pressure. It is curious that most games cozy They deal with mental health or anxiety, but some have mechanics in line with this and others offer ones that are radically opposite to the feelings they seek to create in the player. The perversion of language, or the excessive use of a label such as “cozy” to sell more copies ends up producing a very specific reality: something is broken when the first thing that comes to mind when we talk about these comforting games is taking care of a farm or a supermarket, watering parsnips or paying for an extension to your house. Productivity as leisure Beyond the mechanics and quality of each of them, the addiction and fanaticism that they generate for us does nothing more than put ourselves in front of the mirror and expose the reality of our daily life: even with our leisure we want to be productive, … Read more

In 2015, a man found a rock and kept it thinking it had gold. Ten years later he discovered his true value

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Imagine that one day, while searching for precious metals with a metal detector, you come across a strange reddish rock. You immediately think that it may be hiding gold, so you don’t hesitate to take it home. After numerous attempts to pierce it and discover what’s inside, you give up. It is a practically invulnerable rock, at least with everyday tools, such as grinders. This is what we just described This is what happened to David Hole.an Australian who used to explore Maryborough Regional Park with his detecting equipment in search of precious metals. And yes, he found the rock and tried to open it without success. In the end it turned out to be something much more valuable than any precious metal: a celestial body that had probably traveled to our planet from Mars or Jupiter, in other words, a meteorite. The Maryborough Meteorite The cosmic rock was discovered by Hole in 2015, although the man did not know what it was until 2018. Three years after its discovery he decided to take it to the Victoria Museum of his country in search of answers. Geologists Bill Birch and Dermot Henry They immediately suspected that it was a meteorite. And this was actually a surprise since most of the “meteorites” that people bring to the museum are not actually meteorites. The specialists had a peculiar piece measuring 38.5 cm x 14.5 cm x 14.5 cm. The next step was to photograph it and do a thorough analysis that consisted of making a small cut in order to analyze its composition. After analysis, it was confirmed that it was a meteorite with a high percentage of iron, that is, an ordinary H5 chondrite meteorite, which suggests that its formation could have occurred in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The origin of the Maryborough Meteorite, it should be noted, is a hypothesis, as researchers do not know exactly where it came from or when it may have impacted Earth. However, radiocarbon dating indicates that the rock has remained on Earth between 100 and 1,000 yearsalthough it is believed that it could have crossed our atmosphere in a period of time between 1889 and 1951, that is, in a recent period. If we talk about the value of the meteorite compared to gold, it is difficult to establish a comparative framework, but the museum points out that this is much more valuable. They say that finding gold on Australian soil is more common than finding a meteorite of these characteristics. “This is only the 17th meteorite found in Victoria,” they point out, adding that they are important scientific elements that “take us back in time” to study our Solar System. Certainly, meteorites contain valuable information about the formation of elements in the universe and give us a unique opportunity to study them closely to analyze their characteristics and chemical composition. A different type of research, but complementary, to the missions that are driven towards space, such as that of James Webb Space Telescope u the ambitious OSIRIS-REx. Images | Museums Victoria In Xataka | Who or what excavated the ravines on Mars? The answer is even stranger than we always thought In Xataka | There is already speculation even with Martian soil: the largest piece of Mars on Earth has just been sold for 5.3 million dollars

The true size of the microplastics that populate our life, exposed in this disturbing graphic

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We have a gigantic problem with microplastics. These elements seem to permeate everything that surrounds us: From tap water, lettuce either Even in the testicles and in Archaeological elements with centuries behind them. The difficulty in fighting them is that we would have to Put our consumption habits up to deal with this almost invisible enemy. And this graph prepared by Visual Capitalist It allows us to put the size of microplastics in context when comparing them with more everyday elements. In short: small. Talking about microplastics, it really encompasses very diverse particles. The larger ones measure about 5,000 microns, which are five millimeters. They are small, but perfectly identifiable to the naked eye. At the extreme are those who measure a micra, and there the identification is complicated because we are talking about 0.001 millimeters. In the graph (which takes data From agencies such as the EPA, the United States Environmental Protection Agency) we can see an expanded comparison that allows us to put a microplastic of a microphone with a particle of dust, the diameter of a human hair (about 80 microns) or a grain of sand (90 microns). If a hair seems ‘fine’ and is 80 times thicker than one of the smallest microplastics, imagine the size of that particle. The nanoplastic. There is another category: nanoplastic. Here we are talking about those particles that measure less than one micra and that enter a totally different scale. Nanopathic They are the result of the breakage of larger plastics such as food containers, Plastic utensils or any element produced with this material that we use in our day to day. As they break, they become more and smaller pieces that enter the Nanoscale when they measure less than one micra. There they cannot be purchased with more family elements such as a grain of salt, but directly with particles such as the Coronaviruswhich measures between 0.1 and 0.2 microns. Problem. Its dimensions make microplastics be omnipresentbeing the most tiny particles those that are even together with other suspended particles, Like the dust we aspire. The estimate is that an adult can ingest between 39,000 and 52,000 microplastic particles per year only for the diet, but other sources such as that air exposure should be taken into account. And there are more and more studies that alert other sources of microplastics. For example, packages we all use like tuppers. Also those who detach when cutting food into a plastic table are “easy” to identify and even correct with a change in our habits, but there are other microplastics that already They are finding in bottled water. Spain is one of the European countries that More bottled water consumesso throwing accounts seems bleak. Health. For now, more than damage there are worrying indications. Blood microplastics, lungs, placenta, heart, brain and in the aforementioned testicles have been found. There are already associations between these particles and conditions such as conical inflammation, oxidative stress or immunological alterations. It is investigated whether the presence of microplastics in the capillary vessels can increase the risk of heart attack or cardiovascular problems, but something that adds more spicy to the equation is that these nanoplastic could penetrate The biological barriers. As? Crossing cell membranes as a virus would do. And ecosystems. And, obviously, they are particles that are present in virtually any corner. There are agricultural soils, lakes and The oceans. Apart from the conditions similar to the human that could have other organisms, we are what we eat and Animals feed on elements containing microplasticsso those particles then end within us. As we say, there is increasingly a greater concern about the state of microplastics around us, but the big problem is that eliminating them seems especially complicated when, we look where we look, there are microplastics. The positive note? How to change large -scale habits seems complex, there are already those who are investigating Filters to reduce the amount of microplastics That come to us. In addition to much more invasive practices, as filtered with human blood… if you have a money. In Xataka | Japan has found a formula to overcome one of the biggest environmental problems: plastic that falls apart

The true city of the future is not in China, we have it next to the house: Benidorm

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In the province of Alicante between crows of calm waters and white villages such as Altea, that vertical colossus that we all know appears: Benidorm; for many an urban non -non -nonsense; For others, a continuous party on its crowded sea and the streets of English bars just some apples from the beach. I, who am Alicante, know the discussions it causes. We can spend hours regretting your skyline, your infinite blocks or tourist invasion. But, beyond prejudices, Benidorm is moving in an unexpected direction: to become an urban sustainability laboratory, capable of producing its own energy, reusing almost all the water that consumes and serves as a model to other cities that seek to survive the climatic crisis. Short. The BIPV system (photovoltaic integration in buildings) is not new, but the intervention presented by the solar company Earth takes another step. According to your own statementThe company will rehabilitate two residential buildings of 17 plants, Medical Club VI and VII, by integrating 1,200 m² of vertical photovoltaic glass integrated into ventilated facade. Beyond the aesthetic. These facades will act as an energy skin capable of generating about 190,000 kWh per year, which will reduce the energy demand of the houses around 35% and avoid the emission of more than 50 tons of CO₂ per year. “This project shows that energy rehabilitation can go far beyond efficiency: it can transform buildings into active renewable energy generators,” José Carlos Antón saidCEO of Solar Earth. In addition, the ventilated facade system provides thermal and acoustic insulation, reinforcing the comfort of the neighbors. The work has the support of the Ministry of Housing, the Generalitat Valenciana and a financing of 1.9 million euros of the Next Generation EU Plan. A city looking for more. Benidorm has been working on another critical resource for years: The water. In an increasingly frequent drought context in Spain, they place the city among the more efficient in water managementwith uses close to 95% compared to 75% in Spain and the EU and with Reuse for irrigation around 30%. The strategy has been clear: constant infrastructure investment, renewal of obsolete networks, digitalization and control in real time of consumption and leaks. In 2025, the City Council He even presented a regenerated water management plan that will save about 15 % of the drinking water consumed by the city. The first phase is already underway in the Poniente area, where regenerated water will be supplied to more than 6,000 homes. All for a broader strategy. The commitment to solar glass and water reuse is part of a broader strategy of urban sustainability. He Benidorm Plan 360within the tourist sustainability plans at destination, it includes projects such as climatic corridors, sustainable urban drainage systems or the measurement of the water footprint. There are also actions in energy efficiency, such as the renewal of public lighting with LED technology, and sustainable mobility plans. All this has earned Benidorm the recognition of “green pioneer” within the network of smart tourist destinations. A paradigm shift. For years, Benidorm has been a symbol of mass tourism and urban speculation. Under that facade, however, the city has learned to manage its resources as few. He did it with water and now he wants to do it with energy. The true city of the future is not being built in Chinese megalopolis or in the futuristic experiments of the Middle East, but a few kilometers from home, in front of the Mediterranean. And it’s called Benidorm. Image | Freepik and Unspash Xataka | Self -consumption takes another step in China: windows that produce electricity while still being windows

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