understand

“I don’t understand Stallone, I have the impression that he only does it for money”

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That phrase from Clint Eastwood is not current, but belongs to 2003, to a profile that Lillian Ross wrote about Eastwood for ‘The New Yorker’. Curiously, after that Stallone returned to Rocky, but he did so with a film that was a huge critical and public success. And Eastwood did not return to any of his previous films. That is, a quarter of a century later, the quote is nuanced but it essentially means the same thing. What is it coming for? That “I don’t understand Sylvester Stallone. I have the impression that he only does it for money” was said within Eastwood’s broader reflection on his own career: he was talking about Harry Callahan, about the risk of stagnating artistically, about the need to grow instead of going backwards. At that time, it was not known whether ‘Rocky Balboa’ would end up being a worthy film or a nostalgic wreck. In 2003, filming hadn’t even started. It was cool. Three years later, Stallone wrote, directed and starred in that sixth installment. The critical reaction far exceeded that of its two predecessors: Rotten Tomatoes Today it scores 78% out of 180 reviews, well above the reception that ‘Rocky V’ had in 1990. In commercial terms, ‘Rocky Balboa’ grossed 155.9 million dollars with a budget of 24 million. The installment that recovered Rocky was a very worthy tribute to a classic character. Everyone sins. Eastwood was also not free from the impulse to resurrect characters. He played Harry Callahan five times between 1971 and 1988, until ‘The Blacklist’, the last installment of the saga. When a sixth Callahan was finally ruled out, Warner Bros. did not close the door: in 2004 it considered relaunching the franchise with Dwayne Johnson as a thirty-something detective. The plan died due to Johnson’s own box office failures. Without consequences (relatively). However, Eastwood has remained true to his words: in 2003 he had already abandoned Callahan’s films many years ago and was fully immersed in a career as a complete auteur accepted by Hollywood. Words are always relative, yes, because at the end of the day… what are films like ‘Unforgiven’ if not late sequels to his successes as a protagonist for directors like Leone, where the director wonders what happens when the icons reach an advanced age and all the treasures obtained by clean shooting have come to nothing? What remains The really valuable thing about this statement, which we must remember that the current nonagenarian Eastwood has not uttered, is that it is infinitely nuanced: Rocky returned to one of his classic franchises (and would do so again with ‘John Rambo’, another critical – to a lesser extent, yes – and public success), but it was a more than worthy return. And Eastwood would stay true to his words, but four Dirty Harry sequels are there to remind him that there is no one with a completely irreproachable career. In Xataka | “They were not used to silence”: when Clint Eastwood set foot in Spain for the first time in 1964, he was marked forever

NASA has managed to make a satellite “understand” what it sees, without sending a single photo to Earth

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The role of satellites is simple. They take data, send it to Earth and, once here, it is analyzed. So far, that is being viable. However, the process is getting complicated. There are more and more satellites (Hello, Elon Musk), which means more information flowing to Earth. There are not enough people, energy or time to analyze so much information. For this reason, NASA and the startup LoftOrbital have developed NAVI-Orbital, software for satellite observation that is capable of describing what it sees and even searching for what it is ordered to do. A model of vision and language. NAVI-Orbital works with Gemma 3a series of vision and language models belonging to Google DeepMind. As their name suggests, they are capable of processing both images and text, so that, with proper training, they can describe images and respond to simple text commands. Before, a multitude of complex computer commands had to be used for a satellite to follow orders and even then the results had to be analyzed by humans. Now, all you have to do is ask him to obey and analyze the results. Find what you ask for. A clear example of what NAVI-Orbital can do is search for objects, buildings or geographical features. If you know what a river is, you can search and display all the rivers in a given area. You can also locate all bridges or roads. But, in turn, it can identify anomalies in those places. For example, you may find rivers about to overflow or roads where there has been an accident. much faster. Most artificial intelligence algorithms send information to data centerswhere the result is processed and returned. In this case, however, what is known as edge AI is used. That is to say, the entire model runs directly on the same device that captures the data. The satellite in this case. Civil or military applications. In April, the first tests were carried out with the YAM-9 satellite, which already has the new software incorporated, with very good results. It was the first time that a satellite managed to describe what it “sees.” That’s why NASA and LoftOrbital are already excited about their applications. They consider that satellite constellations with NAVI-Orbital could be used to monitor the planet for civil or defense applications. They can search for oil spills, for example, but also study possible military attacks. The difference with what we have so far with any of these purposes is that nothing has to be analyzed. That is, you don’t put a satellite to take photos of the sea and then here on Earth a team of people or a computer algorithm analyzes them for oil spills. It is the satellite itself that saves sending thousands of photos without spills and directly analyzes what it sees. The result is much faster, cheaper and more efficient. It may even be the future of satellite observation, although it is still too early. We will have to see how these models that have already begun to undergo the first tests evolve. Image | LoftOrbital In Xataka | Ukraine’s military has a problem almost as important as Russia: Starlink belongs to Elon Musk

Centuries ago, the merchants of a town in Segovia decided that no one would understand them. They ended up creating a unique language

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It does not reach 3,700 inhabitants and it is almost an hour from Segovia capital and 90 minutes from the center of Madrid, but Cantalejo (Castilla y León) hides a fascinating treasure, one of those that cannot be valued in euros or any other currency. For centuries this small town in the Duratón region has been the epicenter of a unique dialect: the gallerya jargon once used by threshing floor merchants and which, according to some experts, draws on words taken from other languages, such as Basque, Galician, French or Arabic. Now he keeps a pulse so as not to disappear. What is the gagaría? The “jargon of the Cantalejo thrillers.” Or at least this is how he defines it the ‘Dictionary of Current Spanish’ of the BBVA Foundation. However, to fully understand the history and relevance of the gacería (or briquero) more nuances must be taken into account. Its richness of lexicon means that it is often presented more as a ‘dialect’a ‘linguistic variant’ or even a language. Its use has also transcended artisans and threshing floor merchants to extend to other areas. Nowadays there are websites where is documented the vocabulary and expressions of the slang and even published works in the slang, including a hobby book and a translation from ‘The Little Prince’ by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, whose briquero title would be ‘The cocky pitoche’. Its footprint also expands beyond the municipal area of ​​Cantalejo, with echoes in other neighboring towns in Castilla y León. More than 300 words. As Professor Sara Engra explains in an article On the subject, the gazería presents some interesting peculiarities. At a linguistic level, in terms of word structures and intonation, it conforms to Spanish norms. Also its syntax. What differentiates it is its lexicon. “It is limited to replacing Spanish words with (mostly) borrowings from other languages,” explains the linguist, who gives as an example ‘The gazebo is garnished by the briqueros of Vilorio Sierte’which would be translated as ‘The gacería is spoken by the inhabitants of Cantalejo’. The structure of the sentence, the use of verbs or plurals is similar to Spanish, the lexicon changes. What makes slang so amazing is your vocabulary and how you have formed it. The web Cantalejo.comwhich is dedicated to collecting words and disseminating the characteristics of speech, assures that the briquero is made up of 353 terms, almost all nouns, although there are also 40 verbs and a handful of adjectives, such as ‘serte’, ‘gazo’, ‘pitoche’ either ‘sievo’which in Spanish mean, ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘little’ and ‘old’. Other sources raise their lexicon to about 500 words. From Basque to Arabic. Beyond its greater or lesser richness of vocabulary, the most striking thing about the gacería is the origin of those more than 300 words that make up its slang. Engra remembers that there are terms from Basque, Galician and Catalan, but also others imported from Arabic or even Galicianisms. The linguist specifies that in some of the words of Cantalejo’s slang another phenomenon can be seen: metathesiswhich basically consists of changing the place of one or more sounds or syllables of a word, as may be the case of ‘miraglo’ instead of miraculo or ‘murciégalo’ for bat. If we review the lexicon of the gacería we can see that there are terms that derive from Spanish through this ‘deformation’. It is not his only strategy for creating words. Another, just as interesting, is to recover rarely used words and use them to indirectly refer to a new reality. Engra cites a specific case: significant (“carrying a sign”) is changed to ‘sinifaro’which means ‘civil guard’. Other peculiarities of speech are its intonation and gestures. The origins. The authors do not always agree on the details of the origin and antiquity of the gacería, although they do tend to agree on several details. The first, which dates back centuries. The second, the key role played by the inhabitants of Cantalejo who traveled through Spain to sell threshes and cattle. Engra, for example, slide which served as a code, a ‘secret’ speech shared by the Cantalejans that allowed them to “encrypt conversations and hide information” when negotiating with merchants from other regions. The gaceria would therefore be like a code created and nurtured by the residents of Cantalejo who traveled around Spain to trade their goods. When they wanted to exchange information with each other, safe from other people’s ears, they resorted to their own jargon that was indecipherable to merchants from other areas. Regarding its origins, it is usually pointed to 13th centuryalthough there are who points rather to the 16th, 18th or 19th century, with its peak well into the 20th century. a living speech. “When our ancestors toured Spain and went through Galicia, the Basque Country, Extremadura… they heard different dialects, words that they did not understand, so they brought many of them with them. In the workshops they were later unified, forming phrases. And thus the gacería was born,” explains to The Newspaper Ana Rosa Zamarro, mayor of Cantalejo and leading voice in the defense of slang. “They used it to warn each other during sales deals.” With the changes in agriculture and the depopulation of rural areas, the gacería has been losing ground, which does not mean that Cantalejo has forced its speech. A jargon for the 21st century. Zamarro assures that continues to be heard on the street and in recent years steps have been taken to guarantee its future, which includes since the publication of hobby books or to the translation of classic works. Even the local public school works to pass it on to the new generations. The objective: that Cantalejo (and the province of Segovia and Castilla y León) does not lose one of its great linguistic treasures. Images | Wikipedia1 and 2 and From Tuma In Xataka | In 1953, North Korea and South Korea spoke the same language. In 2026, they begin to be two different

We have been trying to understand how heat kills us for years. Some Spanish researchers have found their ‘right hand’: pollution

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In August 2003 there was a heat wave. It wasn’t just any heat wave. It was one of the worst in memory. Researchers do not agree, but it is estimated that in Spain there were about 6,600 deaths due to excess mortality only in the first fortnight of the month. Almost 13,000 at the end of the month. However, from heat stroke (the picture we imagine when we think of dying “from heat”) only 141 died. The rest died because the heat aggravated pathologies they already had. In recent years and in the hope of finding ways to fight against “the (natural) phenomenon that kills the most in Europe”, many researchers have tried to understand how heat enhances these diseases. And all roads lead to the same place: pollution. That pollution kills is not news. It is something that, in fact, It is very documented. What is new is being able to see how the disease does its dirty work in the middle of a heat wave. An ISCIII team estimated these days that, on average, 18.7% of excess mortality What today we attribute to temperature corresponds to pollution. That is, one in five. If we add the haze, the percentage would amount to 22.5%. And how does this happen? It is something that is closely related to the atmospheric functioning of a heat wave. In general terms, this type of phenomena occurs in two ways: by an anticyclonic block and the other is by a Saharan advection. In the first case, stability and sunshine prevent pollutants are dispersed and tropospheric ozone is triggered. In the second, the air mass comes with suspended dust. That is, although they work differently. The two major mechanisms destroy air quality and pose a public health threat. Why is this important? Because in Spain Many people die in this ‘perfect storm’ heat and pollution. What’s more, even if they do not die, the loss of quality of life associated with hospital admissions and acute outbreaks is tremendous. And what do we do? The background proposal of the researchers is simpler than it seems: go from an alert and threshold system based only on temperature to one that combines temperature and pollution. This would allow us to adapt better. For example, during a heat wave, we could encourage teleworking, traffic limitations and redirect public activities to areas with less pollution. This does not replace the usual measures, but they allow us to improve the way we think about that silent killer that is heat. Image | János Venczák In Xataka | The heat already kills more than the cold in Spain (despite the fact that we have more protocols to avoid it)

The biggest mystery of the World Cup is why all the boots are pink: the answer is very simple to understand

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When the referee started a Spain-Curaçao match that should have been a mere formality, nine of Spain’s eleven players were wearing pink boots. Yesterday, as Harry Kane appeared to skate across the Dallas turf, ten of England’s eleven players were wearing pink boots. Shortly after, whoever had the courage to stay to watch the Ghana-Panama game at dawn will have seen that eleven of the eleven Panama players were wearing pink boots. The original and striking become the most standard decision possible. When Mateo Kovacic jumped onto the field to try to build a retaining wall for Kane’s England, a short shot was enough to catch our attention: the boots were black. Complete. What was once the norm has become a countercultural exercise. The feeling of “here we have someone who knows everything.” Without expecting it, Mateo Kovacic became the player who stood out the most on the entire field. In Xataka "It’s a golden cage, the World Cup is being hijacked": Hydration breaks have turned football into a new sport From original to irrelevance The issue of boots in this 2026 World Cup reminds me of wooden bow ties. For some reason still unknown, there was a day when the wooden bow tie became fashionable. At a wedding, a friend showed up with one. Evidently, it was the center of attention at that time when one seems to be facing a fashion show before the first beers begin to flow. At the next wedding the scene was repeated with another protagonist. A couple of years later, up to four people coincided at the event with one of these wooden bow ties. It’s not that the percentage was very high but it was clear that something had broken. The one who thought looked in the mirror before leaving the house to reaffirm that today he was the different one, he had fallen into the trap. He was no longer unique. Not at all. You could almost read the sarcasm in those of us who were witnessing the collapse of a fashion that should never have achieved that status. When Alfonso Pérez Muñoz appeared with white bootsin the late 90s, caused a stir. It was Joma, a Spanish brand, that dared. In a few years, the world’s greatest figures were already combining the classic black with red or blue touches in the mythical and precious Zinedine Zidane’s Adidas Predator. The norm was blown up with the Nike Total 90. The silver and blue of Luis Figo, the white and gold of Wayne Ronney and even the silver and dark gray of Lionel Messi who debuted at FC Barcelona, ​​before moving to Adidas. In the 2000s, almost all schemes regarding the use of color in boots were broken. All that was left was to wear one boot of each color. Spoiler: was also done. In Xataka In Spain-Cape Verde, a small town in Galicia had its heart broken in half: Burela That is why it has attracted so much attention that almost all the World Cup players wear pink boots. Alejandro Mendo, specialist in soccer fashion and creator of the substack Pieces of Fabriccollects the premises of why pink has become the new black. In this thread of X realize that Nike, Adidas or Puma (and even the Skechers that Harry Kane wears) are pink because the marketing message suggests that footballers feel more encouraged and confident in themselves if they wear bright colors that reinforce their personality. But, above all, point to the simple: studies show that the color that looks best on the screen over the green of the grass is pink. Simply put, the companies that dress the players have realized which color stands out the most. And along the way, fashion has become the standard. The pink boot is the new wooden bow tie. Click on the image to go to the original tweet In BBC They point out that it is a mixture of what Alejandro Mendo commented and market studies. They explain that sports brands, like any fashion company, request reports up to two seasons in advance from their trusted consultants to know “what will be worn” in a specific season. And they have all fallen into a pink with a similar tone. Brands like Puma have played to add nuancesas gradients with other colors such as yellow or blue that, in addition, They are independent for each boot (Puma was the first to propose this). Adidas has also played with similar formulas, adding touches of white on the rear. In both cases, from afar the feeling is that we are looking at the same old pink boots. The most curious thing is that this standardization around pink has helped define the campaign of the most special boots since some players stand out from the others for the simple fact of wearing footwear that should be less striking on camera. Click on the image to go to the original tweet We have already talked about Mateo Kovacic but a much rarer case is that of Michael Olise. The France striker has built a story very far from the stereotype of a footballer. A free verse that, in fact, He doesn’t even have a signed sponsorship contract.simply choose boots based on your personal preferences for comfort and your team’s attire. At the moment, we have been able to see him wearing pristine black Nikes. Wear black bootsIn this case, it helps create an image of a differential player that the brands themselves continue to promote. Lionel Messi wears Adidas Último Tango that are reserved exclusively for hima tribute from the German firm to which, we assume, will be the Argentine’s last presence in a World Cup. Of course, Messi doesn’t wear pink boots either and his combination of white and blue shines especially brightly in a tide of bright colors. In Xataka Sneakers have become delicate luxury products, so they have generated a new business: laundry laundries. "sneakers" It is an old strategy among these companies. … Read more

End-to-end encryption is a great idea and that’s why it’s almost impossible to understand why Instagram removes it. Almost

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In an era where many users may be concerned about their privacy and looking to ensure their conversations are as secure as possible, Meta has made a curious move. On May 8, as planned, instagram removed end-to-end encryption in direct messages. The big question now is no longer how to communicate safely but something deeper: what interest Meta may have in those conversations. And AI leads the first suspicions. In short. Although it may seem contradictory, Meta is a company that has shown some concern about allowing the user to have secure private conversations. WhatsApp has been using end-to-end encryption for years and, although It took longer to arrive than desiredFaceBook and Instagram also implemented it for direct messages years ago. Simply put, end-to-end encryption (E2EE) is a technology that ensures that only the sender and receiver can read chats. There are applications that implemented it by default (WhatsApp), but on Instagram it wasn’t like that. It is the user who had to activate it and, if done, automatically and transparently for the user, the device blocks the message using a unique key that prevents anyone other than the recipient from accessing the conversation. It’s over. Download your messages. As we say, it has been on their support blog where Meta has confirmed that end-to-end encrypted messages are no longer available on Instagram. Since last May 8, in fact, and if you have a chat that was protected in this way, a message will appear with instructions to download the messages and keep them safe in case you want to do so. Pressure. The end of this security feature has not been accompanied by a reason why Meta abandons this feature, but it is clear that the company has not done it simply for the sake of it. A few weeks ago, when the company’s plans were announced, a Meta spokesperson told Guardian that “very few people were choosing to send end-to-end encrypted messages.” That was the main reason they cited for stopping service, but you don’t have to scratch the surface too hard to find shadier reasons. For example, different police agencies (Interpol, the United Kingdom National Crime Agency or the FBI) ​​have been pressuring FaceBook to grant them access to encrypted messages. Because of course, this technology is very useful for all of us who value privacy, but it also gives wings to those who want to use it for much darker purposes. There are organizations that have criticized the implementation in apps like Instagram because they point out that, although it is useful, if the company does not implement adequate security measures, it can intensify acts of child sexual exploitationterrorism or giving rise to violent extremism. In fact, the UK government has been searching that Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp or iMessage open or end with that end-to-end encryption. And Apple has had a media battle against the FBI for that very reason. The suspicion. But of course, for a company that has been promoting the discourse since 2019 that encryption in its applications was the way to follow to protect users, this movement seems strange and there are already those who point to more practical reasons for Meta than, simply, to please governments. Those reasons are the ability to train AI. Because if there is no encryption, there is nothing hidden. And, although there is no human reading (although it seems increasingly evident that behind the AI there are humans labeling what our video devices and voice see and hear), having access to the conversations of millions of users allows the algorithms to continue training with the aim of offer advertising more personalized (something that Meta has become very aggressive about in recent months) or chatbots that can continue drinking the Internet. It’s not such a crazy theory.. WhatsApp. “Anyone who wants to keep messaging with end-to-end encryption can go to WhatsApp,” is Meta’s own recommendation and something they said both in statements to The Guardian and on their support page. Because for their communication app they do continue to aggressively push that argument of “express yourself freely with end-to-end encryption”, “show yourself as you are, speak freely” and “no one else has access, not even WhatsApp”. Seeing that the company maintains this encryption on WhatsApp, but not on an Instagram that is increasingly a bazaar, makes the opinion that they withdraw end-to-end encryption based solely on government pressure lose some weight. In any case, as Meta itself says, if you want privacy in your conversations… you will have to go to WhatsApp. Or to any other app with end-to-end encryption. In Xataka | Meta will pay $1.4 billion to Texas for violating the privacy of its users. Used facial recognition without permission

The most important question to understand someone is not what they believe in or what they hope for. The question is what does he love?

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“To know if someone is good, we do not ask what they believe or hope for, but rather what they love.”. One reads this phrase and it is almost inevitable to think that it is the typical self-help junk merchandise that fills feeds, mugs and WhatsApp statuses. But nothing could be further from the truth. And not only because It was written more than 1,500 years ago by one of the most influential thinkers in history, but because (in addition) it has become one of the philosophical concepts of recent months. So maybe the question is not what an old priest can teach us in this time full of haste, but also; The question is why that old priest has returned to the center of public debate exactly now. What exactly did Saint Augustine mean? The phrase is very interesting because, beneath an apparent meaningless string (what do you believe? What do you expect?), it hides a very clear idea of ​​what is important in life. In Christian thought, the three great traditional virtues are precisely faith, hope and love. What the philosopher from Hippo defended is that faith is important, of course; Hope is fundamental, of course it is: but at the center of everything is love. In fact, Augustine himself has another famous phase (“Love and do what you will”) that goes much further in his master-centrism. Nobody can be very surprised, really. Saint Augustine has great hits like: “Lord, grant me chastity and continence, but not now.” That “Do whatever you want” sounds suspicious, but (actually) it’s not so suspicious. We’ll see. Why has all this become popular right now? For politics, of course. On January 29, 2025, US Vice President Vance defended in an interview that canceling most US foreign aid and mass deportations with that argument. That “there is a Christian concept old-school “where you love your family, then your neighbor, then your community, then your fellow citizens, and after that, you can prioritize the rest of the world.” Later, at X.com, he spent the afternoon sending people to google “ordo amoris”. That is to say, Vance endorsed that idea of ​​”love and do what you want” in the most direct way possible. But does it make sense? Translated into a more current language, the Augustinian idea simply tells us that the subject is defined by the direction of his desire, not by the correctness of his beliefs or his expectations. But, without getting into political questions, that doesn’t exactly mean that there is a clear order of obligations that tells us who we should love first and who we should love second. It is not a ranking. Augustine’s idea is more complex because, deep down, he was convinced that love has a transformative power over people: it orders them from within. That is the order he claimed. What we can learn from Saint Augustine without entering into politicking. That what is important are the things that really matter to us; not our ideas about the world, nor what we hope will happen. But, above all, because what we love will end up turning us into the type of person we want to be. In someone, as the Father of the Church would say, good. Image | In Xataka | “If I am wrong, I exist”: 1,500 years ago, Saint Augustine had already given the best argument against the productivity gurus

NASA’s alliance to finally understand dark matter

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This week, NASA launched the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, better known as the Roman Space Telescope. With its launch scheduled for September of this year at the earliest, it will become the space agency’s newest space telescope. It will coexist with others like Hubble or James Webbbut it has something that these don’t have. The ability to track vast expanses of the Universe at once. That’s what makes it special. Much more space. The Roman Space Telescope has 18 detectors that give it a panoramic view of space. It has been baptized with this name in honor of what is known as the mother of Hubble, for her important role in the development of this other space telescope. However, both have major differences. It is capable of looking at a field 100 times larger than that of Hubble. As a result, is expected that discovers tens of thousands of planets, billions of galaxies and stars and thousands of supernovae. An ideal companion for James Webb. The Roman Space Telescope also has advantages over the James Webb. If it is capable of analyzing a field 100 times larger than that of Hubble, in the case of James Webb exceeds it by 50 times. This allows you to observe without a clear objective on the part of the researchers. When exploring such large expanses, you may find something unexpected at any time. That’s where James Webb comes into play. And, although it can analyze less space at once, it is much more precise. Its mirrors are larger, so it captures more light and can discern more details. If the Roman detects something interesting, the James Webb analyzes it with a magnifying glass. Context matters. We have already seen that the James Webb can study the Roman detections with more precision. However, they can also help each other in the opposite direction, since the Roman is capable of providing context around James Webb’s objectives. Together to unravel dark matter. The biggest difference between the Roman Space Telescope and the James Webb compared to Hubble is that they can analyze space by focusing on emissions in the infrared spectrum, rather than visible light. As a result, it can see through cosmic dust, detect cold objects, and look further back in time. The latter is extremely useful for understanding the expansion process of the universe and, incidentally, unravel some mysteries about dark matter. The Universe expands. We have known for a long time that the universe is expanding. That is, the galaxies are moving away from each other, but not because they are moving, but because the space between them is stretched, like a balloon that is inflating. It is also known that this is happening more and more quickly. But why does it happen? It is not clear, but it is suspected that it may be due to dark matter. Supernovas that act as lighthouses. To better understand what is happening, it is important to measure very well how galaxies are separating. One of the ideal ways to do this is by using Ia supernova explosions as beacons. They are phenomena with a known maximum brightness, so they are used to measure distances, taking into account the analysis of their relative brightness from Earth or the place where a space telescope is located. The problem is that they only occur once every 500 years in the Milky Way. A telescope that measures in the infrared can travel very far back in time, but the James Webb only does so in small pieces. The Roman, on the other hand, can analyze such large areas that several of these explosions could be detected at the same time. That would allow several beacons to operate simultaneously to better map the Universe and understand why it is expanding as it does. Once the beacons were located, the James Webb would enter the game to do its detailed analysis. Together they can unravel very ancient mysteries of astrophysics. There is no one better than the other. Image | POT In Xataka | We have been studying the planets of TRAPPIST-1 for years with great hope. James Webb just knocked it down

There are only 66 cases in the world and science is just beginning to understand it

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Night rest can be interrupt due to many factorssuch as the need to go to the bathroom constantly to drink water before going to sleep, but there are other cases, such as painful sleep erectionswhich right now is emerging from ignorance, and that is why every time you get to know more of this problem which, fortunately, is quite infrequent. What is it? Although you may think that this is a problem related to the penis, the truth is that it is classified as a parasomnia. And it is no wonder, because what happens to the man here is that he has multiple erections during the night while he is in the REM phase of sleep that are so painful that it makes you wake up with a jump out of bed. But the curious thing is that the problem does not lie in the penis tissue itself, but rather clinical reviews point out that this disease is closely linked to hypertonicity or contracture of the bulbocavernosus muscles of the penis and the pelvic floor. Added to this are alterations in the central nervous system, such as instability during REM sleep, a peak in activity of the sympathetic nervous system and abnormal processing of pain and hormonal stress signals. It’s a challenge. At the level of cases diagnosed with this problem, the reality is that we speak of a “phantom disease” since it barely there are 66 cases documented worldwide, and there are almost no articles in the medical literature. This is something that translates into a situation of underdiagnosis, since in daily practice specialists see very few cases throughout their career. As a result, patients suffer a medical journey that delays diagnosis for years, and in desperation, and in the absence of answers, many end up assuming erroneous self-diagnoses based on chronic stress or prostatitis. Science tries to advance. Historically, the lack of cases made it difficult to create treatment protocols with the steps that doctors had to follow to solve the patient’s problem. However, recent clinical research has shed light on highly effective therapeutic approaches. That is why right now the use of muscle relaxants such as baclofen has proven to be a turning point for patients, since by relaxing the muscles of the penis an improvement is achieved in patients with this problem. In addition, diseases that are below this problem should also be looked for, such as sleep apnea or insomnia in general, which may be related to this pathology. Although there is still much to be done to investigate this disease, which a priori is quite unknown. Images | gpointstudio on Freepik In Xataka | Before colonizing other planets, humanity must solve a problem: erections in space

this single fact is enough to understand this spring

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Roller coaster, they call it; but, in reality, it is simply spring. Although, of course, what a spring: the first two weeks of April have chained at least three thermal oscillations of great amplitude: drops of up to 20 degrees in a matter of hours, very rapid ascents and starting again. And the heat is back, but what everyone is wondering is something else: are we already on the slow road towards summer or will there be more relapses? We have an answer. The answer is obviously not simple and, in fact, is very speculative; but the elements are there. To begin with, the AEMET’s seasonal forecast places April, May and June in the upper tertile of temperatures. We know that the months can give us surprises (as has happened with this January 2026), but we also know that forecasting is generally strong. Furthermore, as we have explained, the transition to El Niño is underway. It is true that the impact of the phenomenon in Spain is ambiguous and that, if anything, the strongest trend has to do with rainfall. But it is clear that, given what we have seen in the data, it is another argument in favor of heat. Of course, the behavior of the polar jet can still give us some cold episodes (April is usually the month with the greatest undulation of the jet). However, the space of possibilities is increasingly narrow and limited. Spain is an increasingly warmer place. AEMET data they leave no room for doubt: The last cold record in mainland Spain was the night of April 2 to 3, 2022. Since then, in the last four years, we have not had any more. Instead, we have had 100 records of warm days. This is not normal: in a world without climate change, five cold and five warm records are expected each year. That is, we would expect 2o from January 2022 and we have only seen two. Both in April of that year. This is the context in which 2026 takes place. So this heat is now definitive? With all this, the short answer is probably yes. Above all, because even if the cold air intrusions return… they will be increasingly weaker and briefer. And that, in the middle of a spring that tends to be warmer than normal, paints a fairly predictable scenario. The chips are on the table. All that’s left is for them to start falling. Image | BenBaso | Xataka In Xataka | Castilla-La Mancha and Murcia have been in a battle for years for the water of the Tagus: once again, Murcia is winning

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