wrong

Japan sent the wrong creature to eradicate snakes from an island. The disaster was so big that it took half a century to solve it

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Once again, desperate situations lead to extreme measures. Save a species sometimes it involves “exterminating” another. We have seen it in South Africa and his plan to annihilate miceeither injecting radioactive material into the horns of rhinosthe cases of hunt the wild cator the plan for exterminate half a million owls. However, sometimes things do not go as governments imagine. In Japan they know it perfectly. The incident of ’79. The story begins in 1979 on the Japanese island of Amami Ōshima, located in the Kagoshima prefecture. That year, Amami’s rabbit is rediscovered (Pentalagus furnessi), an endemic species and considered a “living fossil” due to its evolutionary antiquity. Before the discovery, the rabbit was thought to be on the brink of extinction due to habitat loss and hunting. The discovery marked a before and after for the conservation of the species and highlighted the importance of protecting the natural environment of the island, home to many other unique species. An event that also highlighted the need for greater conservation efforts at Amami Ōshima, for example trying to eradicate or control the snake population. A wrong “bomb”. Thus, a few months later, Japan launched a plan. Introduces around 30 mongooses to the island with the intention of ending the population of snakes, specifically the habu (Trimeresurus flavoviridis), which represented a threat to the local inhabitants. The idea, on paper, was a seamless plan: that the mongooses, which are natural predators of snakes, would reduce the number of habus and improve security on the island at all levels. However, that project was far from infallible. The mongoose was not the ideal creature to eradicate snakes. Firstly, because they are animals active during the day, therefore, they could not catch the nocturnal habu snakes, which continued to inhabit the following decades without problem. What happened as a result had an enormous ecological impact. A specimen of Trimeresurus flavoviridis Predation of endemic species. Thus, during the day, instead of focusing on the habu snakes, the mongooses began to prey on a wide range of native species, including several that had no natural enemies on the island until then. That seriously affected the local fauna, especially endemic and endangered species, like the same Amami rabbit that had just been happily announced months ago. Hundreds of thousands of mongooses. The situation reached such a point that the mongooses, brought in to eradicate one pest, had become an even larger and more dangerous one, one that It reached around 10,000 copies. at its peak around the year 2000. The truth is that Japan had already started a mongoose control project in 1993 that was expanded over time. As? Around 30,000 traps were set on the island to capture the animals and cameras with sensors were installed to monitor them. In addition, local residents formed the so-called Amami Mongoose Bustersa team specialized in capturing mongooses (they captured thousands). The end? In 2018, the last official capture of a mongoose on the island occurred. It occurred in the month of April, and since no creature has been captured for a long period of time, the expert panel, which is tasked with determining whether the animal is eradicated from the island, estimated that the eradication rate was between 98.8 and 99.8% in February last year, reaching a preliminary conclusion that it is reasonable to say/think that mongooses are eradicated from the island under the current circumstances. Finally, on September 3, 2024, Japan’s Ministry of Environment declared eradication of non-native mongooses on the island of Amami-Oshima, declared a World Natural Heritage Site by UNESCO. The statement was based on the opinion of the expert group on scientific grounds, taking into account that the capture of mongooses has not been confirmed for more than six years since the last one in April 2018. A unique case. The ministry itself did not hide the disaster that was the attempt to control the snakes in 1979. In fact, and as the administration has announced, it is one of the largest cases in the world in which non-native mongooses that had been established for so long have been eradicated. After the statement, the government explained that it will remove the traps that were placed on the island, although it will continue to monitor with cameras to prevent a new group of these small creatures from entering again. After all, if it took half a century to get them out of there, any contingency method is more than understandable. A version of this article can be foundlaunched in 2024 Image | Animalia, TANAKA Juuyoh, Patrick Randall In Xataka | “There are so many that you can hold them with your hand”: the daily nightmare of a town in Pontevedra with flies In Xataka | Salamanca faces its biggest environmental plague in decades. And the problem is that you can’t legally stop it.

Microsoft’s problem is not having lost a quarter of its value in three months. It’s just that he’s been wrong for a long time.

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It seems like not so long ago when many celebrated Microsoft’s commitment to Azure. The decision of Satya Nadella Focusing on cloud computing soon began to translate into good financial results, propelling the Redmond company to achieve record revenue figures. But there was something more relevant in that movement: the realization that it could generate enormous benefits beyond Windows. That strategy, started in 2014ended up marking a before and after that became especially visible in 2019, when the firm reached for the first time a market capitalization of one trillion dollars. However, not even the most long-term oriented strategists, like Nadella, are free from errors. Microsoft has been chaining questionable decisions for some time that have ended up having a direct impact on its quarterly results. Specifically, the company has lost almost a quarter of its value in just three months. To put it in context, we are talking about its largest quarterly drop since the 2008 financial crisis. A decline of this magnitude, logically, does not go unnoticed. From cloud leadership to a strategy under pressure If we want to understand why the story has gone wrong, we have to start with the most obvious: the market has reacted harshly and, above all, selectively. In the first quarter of 2026, Microsoft lost about 23% of its stock market value, according to CNBCwhile the Nasdaq lost around 7%. It is not a minor movement, among other things because we are talking about a drop of a magnitude that has not been seen in almost two decades. This gap compared to the rest of the sector begins to point out problems that go beyond the general context. For a time, the commitment to OpenAI was seen as one of Microsoft’s great strategic successes, and it is not difficult to understand why. The company has invested around 13 billion dollarss to integrate this technology into Azure and into products like Copilot, which allowed it to place itself in a very advantageous position in the race of the artificial intelligence. However, with the passage of time we have also begun to see the other side of that decision: a very high technological dependence and a growing pressure to justify that deployment. As the months have passed, that close relationship has also quietly begun to change. Although Azure remains a key partner for OpenAI, the company led by Sam Altman has started to open your infrastructure to other actors to sustain the growth of its models, which increasingly require more computing capacity and energy. This does not break the alliance, but it does change its meaning, because Microsoft no longer concentrates with the same clarity all the strategic advantage that it had achieved in the first phases of the agreement. If we go down to the field of the product, where all these bets should materialize, the case of Copilot is especially illustrative. Microsoft has tried to make this assistant the axis of its new value propositionintegrating it into Microsoft 365 and a good part of its ecosystem, but the adoption It is not going at the expected pace. According to The Information, almost no one uses Copilot. What we have seen is that bringing artificial intelligence to the daily life of companies is more complex than it seemed on paper. Added to all this is a tension that is not always seen, but is very present in the backroom of this race: that of how to distribute resources in an environment of growing demand. Microsoft is investing massively in infrastructure to sustain the rise of AI, but at the same time it has to decide how it allocates that capacity between Azure and its own services. In January, CFO Amy Hood came to point out that Azure’s growth in the December quarter would have been even greater if the company had allocated more chips to the cloud instead of distributing some of that capacity among services like Copilot. Attrition is not limited to artificial intelligence, and that should also be taken into account. Also this year we have seen notable drops in income and in various areas of the Xbox ecosystemin a context also marked by previous price increases in Game Pass and on the consoles. It may seem like a minor front next to Azure or Microsoft 365, but it helps complete the picture of a company that has been opening too many flanks at the same time. What we have seen is that even in areas where it had a consolidated position, Microsoft is finding it more difficult to keep pace. Put all these pieces together, and what begins to emerge is an increasingly evident disconnect between Microsoft’s operational strength and the way the market is valuing its strategy. The company remains the fourth most valuable on the planetcontinues to grow, with revenue up close to 17% year-on-year in its last reported quarter and with Azure advancing 39% in the December quarter, but that strength is not translating to its price or valuation. Images | Xataka with Nano Banana 2 In Xataka | The ghost of IBM: Satya Nadella’s great challenge is to prevent Microsoft from becoming a technological fossil

If you downloaded the wrong game on Steam a year ago, now the FBI is looking for you. And yes, it’s the real FBI

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By now, we have all learned to distrust a little of what we see on the internet. Alarmist messages, supposedly official warnings, stories that sound too serious to be true. Therefore, if someone tells us that the FBI could be looking for people for having downloaded a game on Steam, the normal thing is to think that it is another hoax and move on. However, in this case it is worth stopping for a second, because what we see before us does not fit into that usual pattern. The advertisement. As Mein-MMO explainswhat we know part of a clear warning from the FBI itselfwhich has launched an investigation to identify users who may have been affected after installing certain games on Steam. Specifically, the Seattle division notes that these titles included malwaresomething that would have gone unnoticed by those who downloaded them. The time frame is broad, from May 2024 to January 2026, and that is where the agency believes the activity was concentrated. When Valve has to confirm it. The curious thing about this case is that the communication itself with users has had to overcome an obvious barrier, mistrust. Several users on Reddit point out that Valve sent messages to those who may have been affected to inform them of the investigation, but added a clarification that is unusual in this type of notice. The message said: “We can confirm that the message and the linked website are, in fact, from the FBI.” It is not a minor detail, because it reflects the extent to which the context can seem suspicious even when it is legitimate. What games are reached? The FBI has been narrowing the case down to a series of games. Besides, Bitdefender describes them as indie titles with little visibility within the platform, something that could have made it easier for them to go unnoticed for longer. The games mentioned so far are the following: BlockBlasters Chemia Dashverse/DashFPS Lampy Lunara PirateFi Tokenova What were they really looking for?. At this point, it is important to understand what type of threat the cybersecurity sources that have analyzed the case describe. According to the aforementioned cybersecurity firm, we would be facing what is known as an “information stealer“, a type of program designed to collect sensitive data from the device without the user realizing it. Among the information it could extract are credentials stored in the browser, authentication cookies that keep sessions open in different services or even data linked to cryptocurrency wallets. The steps to follow. The agency is asking those who believe they may have been affected to fill out a form specific to provide information to the investigation. As detailed by the agency itself, the responses are voluntary, but they can serve to identify victims of a federal crime and, in some cases, provide access to services, restitution and rights provided for by law. The FBI also adds that the identity of the victims will be kept confidential. Images | FBI | Compagnons In Xataka | There are people earning up to $600 a week talking to strangers. The goal: teach AI to sound human

We have been believing for more than a century that the appendix is ​​a useless organ and an evolutionary error. We were very wrong

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If there is an organ with a bad reputation in human anatomy, it is the appendix. For the vast majority of people, this small worm-shaped pouch connected to the large intestine only serves one thing: to become inflamed, to cause appendicitis urgently and have us undergo surgery. But the truth is that it is more useful than we thought, since science has seen that it has a great impact on our immune system and also in life expectancy. An evolutionary success. Something that marvels me about evolution is that it does eliminate everything that has no use for humans, but if the phylogenetic branch has been maintaining it, it is for a reason. and here a 2013 study analyzed the anatomy of 361 species of mammals and the results were devastating: the appendix is ​​not exclusive to humans and great apes, but has evolved independently at least 32 times. And the question is: why? This theory was later reinforced with a 2017 analysis which identified between 29 and 41 evolutionary gains of the appendix, compared to the very few losses that stood at less than seven. And in biology, when a trait evolves repeatedly in completely different lineages, it means one thing: it provides a crucial adaptive advantage for survival. Its usefulness. If it doesn’t help digest leaves as Darwin believed, then… What does it do? The latest research, including a comprehensive 2023 review published in The Anatomical Record, confirm that the appendix acts as a microbial reservoir and a support for the immune system. This way we know that the appendix is ​​filled with lymphoid tissue and is strategically located outside the “main flow” of the intestine. And it works as a kind of bunker for our microbiome, and in this way, when we suffer a severe intestinal infection that “sweeps away” our bacterial flora, the appendix releases beneficial bacteria hidden inside to quickly recolonize the intestine. And tested. A 2023 study showed that primates with appendages have a relatively lower risk of severe diarrhea episodes early in life, reinforcing their vital role as a protective shield against deadly infections. Its relationship with longevity. The most fascinating discovery about the appendix came in 2021, where a team of researchers published in the journal Ecology and Evolution a study in which they crossed data from 258 mammal species. Controlling for variables such as body size and phylogeny, they looked for patterns between the presence of an appendage and the lifespan of the species. The conclusion they drew was none other than determining that the presence of the appendix is ​​directly correlated with greater maximum longevity. And the reason is in positive natural selection. In this way, by drastically reducing mortality caused by infectious diseases and diarrhea, species with an appendix have a clear survival advantage that allows them to extend their life expectancy. Image | Eugene Chystiakov In Xataka | We have been measuring death wrong: science now believes that our biological expiration date is more hereditary than we thought

We thought we had an AI bubble. There are powerful arguments that indicate that we were wrong

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You either love AI or hate it. Either you are a (deluded?) optimist, or you are on the bandwagon of skeptics and bet due to an imminent puncture of that AI bubble that everyone talks about. The well-known analyst Ben Thompson has been in the second group for some time and stated that in fact we were in a “good” bubble and beneficial even if it bursts. The annual NVIDIA conference a few days ago has made him change his position, and for him there is no bubble. It doesn’t have just one argument, but three. Or rather, three jumps. The first jump: ChatGPT. The launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 was an eye-opener and demonstrated what generative AI could do. That first model, yes, had two serious problems. The first, that he was frequently wrong. The second, that when I didn’t know something, he invented it and hallucinated with astonishing security. That made ChatGPT something awesome but unreliable, like a cool toy that needs constant user supervision to be truly useful. The second leap: reasoning. Almost two years later, another unique revolution occurred in the field of generative AI. In September 2024 OpenAI launched its o1 model and with it there was a spectacular novelty. For the first time, the model did not simply blurt out the first thing that came to mind: he reasoned about his answer before giving it, evaluated whether it was correct, and considered alternatives. The result was an AI significantly more reliable and, therefore, more useful. The price? More computing. AI models with the ability to “reason” consume many more tokens than those that respond directly, and that triggered demand for infrastructure. Or what is the same: data centers. The third jump: the agents. These two revolutions have been joined by the third, that of AI agents. Claude Code and Codex at the end of 2025 showed that AI agents were no longer a promise and became something that really worked. From then on it is possible to give them instructions so that they can then start executing nested tasks that can keep them working for hours. These agents verify their own results and correct errors without the human having to intervene. The difference with what we had before is notable, but it also dismantles the bubble theory. Bubble? In a bubble, Thompson explained, investment exceeds real demand. However, in his opinion, the opposite is true here, because each hyperscaler—Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta—has made it clear that the computing demand is surpassing them, and to solve it they are all announcing astronomical investments in AI data centers. These investments exceed market expectations, but not those of these companies, which like Thompson are clear that in reality the demand is going to end up being so enormous that the current infrastructure will fall very short. Millions of users are not needed. Even more striking in this analysis is another nuance that this analyst points to. Chatbots were supposed to need mass adoption to generate economic impact, but on the other side we have agents, who don’t have that requirement. A single person can control thousands (millions?) of agents simultaneously, creating complex tasks. That means it doesn’t take everyone to use AI for computing demand to skyrocket: enough people just need to use it as they are likely to use it: to create those “one-person businesses” where one human being has thousands of AI employees. Companies will pay. The reality is that the vast majority of consumers are not going to want to pay for AI. Companies do, because they pay for productivity and AI seems start fulfilling that promise. But the argument goes beyond cost savings: agents not only make the work that humans do more efficient, but they allow a small group of people with a clear strategic vision to execute it on a scale that previously required hundreds of employees who also had to be coordinated. Large companies have been adding layers of management necessary to scale for decades, but all that hierarchy disappears with agents. But. This analyst is also clear that the wave of layoffs is going to be increasingly evident and it is evident that AI is going to have a clear impact. However, he explains that many of these current layoffs correspond more to the overemployment experienced with the COVID-19 pandemic. What will happen now is that companies will no longer wonder if they hired too much for the “pre-AI” world, but rather if they hired too much for the “post-AI” world. In fact, those that don’t ask will probably end up competing with smaller rivals, built from the ground up with AI and with radically lower cost structures. For him two things are clear. The first is that the demand for computing will not stop growing. The second, that the bubble, if it exists —and according to him, the answer is that he doesn’t—, it’s not going to explode. In Xataka | His dog had cancer, his vets had no solutions and he found an mRNA vaccine elsewhere: ChatGPT

We believed spring was here to stay. We were wrong and in the worst way

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And that mistake has a name and surname: Therese. It is number 19 of the season and, with its mere existence, it already means an absolute record since we started naming storms. But it’s not going to stay like that. The high-impact storm will suddenly break into Spain and it will be noticed. In a matter of 48 or 72 hours, temperatures will drop up to 8 degrees in the interior of the peninsula while the Canary Islands suffers the most intense storm in more than a decade. And, right after, the polar cold. But let’s start with the storm. Therese formed as a cold low west of the peninsula on Tuesday the 17th and was named by the Portuguese meteorological agency. Its effects will vary a little depending on the area of ​​the country we look at. In peninsular Spain, the thermal decrease started yesterday in the southwestern half and, little by little, it will move to the northwest. If the falls so far are about 3 degrees, will increase up to 6 degrees in the Pyrenees, the interior of the Valencian Community and the Basque Country. That is, for now, it will only be a little cold. The Canary Islands, on the other hand, have some very complicated days. AEMET has already issued the warnings and it is expected that Sunday the 22nd will be very adverse. More than 300 liters in La Palma and Tenerife, wind gusts above 90 km and snow on Teide. And after? Then we will suffer a polar irruption at the gates of Holy Week. Or, at least, that’s what the main meteorological models say: that an anticyclonic ridge will rise towards the north from the Atlantic and will send us a mass of polar air. We expect precipitation in Galicia and the Cantabrian Sea, frost in the northern mountains and cold. quite cold. Not much: Spain has not recorded a single cold day record for four years. But enough to turn many Easter plans upside down. A different spring that looks a lot like a new normal. Be that as it may, the news it is again the extremely twisted polar jet: the same phenomenon that (with the help of some other factor) has been giving us rain for all these months and that, now, returns again. Image | ECMWF In Xataka | The snowiest ski resort in Europe right now is not in the Alps or the Pyrenees: it is in Granada

OpenAI wanted to make ChatGPT the ideal GP. The problem is that he’s wrong half the time.

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OpenAI started the year with a new release: ChatGPT health mode. Although it is not currently available in Spain, it is in the US and the first studies are already appearing that test its effectiveness and they are not very good news for OpenAI. It’s not that big of a deal. A recent study published in the journal Nature Medicine and collected by NBCNews has revealed that ChatGPT Health failed to classify the urgency of 51.6% of the emergency medical cases analyzed. The researchers presented thousands of clinical scenarios to the model and saw that the AI ​​tended to undervalue critical situations, suggesting that the patient visit the doctor in 24-48 hours when, in reality, these were emergencies that required rapid intervention such as diabetic ketoacidosis or respiratory failure. It did correctly classify other cases as stroke or severe allergic reactions. It doesn’t make sense. Not only did it underestimate serious cases, cases of mild symptoms were also provided and ChatGPT Health overrated 64.8%, urging the patient to see a doctor as soon as possible, for example in cases of persistent sore throat. Dr. Ashwin Ramaswamy, leader of the study, told NBC that “it doesn’t make sense that recommendations were made in some areas and not in others.” Suicidal ideas. There is still more. The cases presented included some with suicidal ideations. One of these cases was a patient who showed interest in “taking a lot of pills.” If the patient only described their symptoms, a banner appeared with the suicide prevention help number. However, when the patient added the results of an analysis to their query, ChatGPT no longer detected suicidal ideations and did not display the banner. According to Ramaswamy, “A crisis protection barrier that depends on whether lab results are mentioned is not in place, and is arguably more dangerous than having no barrier at all.” Why it is important. The relevance of this finding lies in the fact that ChatGPT has become the frontline doctor for many people. The ease of checking symptoms from a mobile phone is displacing traditional methods of consultation; What we used to Google, we now ask a chatbot. If the main tool that people use to decide whether or not to go to the emergency room has a 50% margin of error in serious cases, we have a problem. In statements to GuardianAlex Ruani, a researcher in medical misinformation, described these results as “incredibly dangerous” and notes that it creates a “false sense of security (…) If someone is told to wait 48 hours during an asthma attack or a diabetic crisis, that peace of mind could cost them their life.” OpenAI responds. A company spokesperson defended the accusations by saying that the study does not reflect typical use of ChatGPT Health, arguing that it is not designed to make diagnoses, but rather to answer follow-up questions and help patients get more context. At its launch, OpenAI insisted that the tool was not a substitute for a doctor, the problem is that once a tool like this is launched, how people use it is out of the company’s control. Flattery and hallucinations. Chatbots have a flattery problem and they tend to agree with the user. On the other hand there is the phenomenon of hallucinations. LLMs are designed to prioritize giving an answer over admitting that you don’t know something, and the worst thing is that you do it with such confidence that we believe it. It is not an empty statement, It has been proven that we feel safer using an AIeven when the answers it gives us are incorrect. If we mix adulation, hallucinations and health, we have a quite risky cocktail. Image | OpenAI In Xataka | People Blaming ChatGPT for Causing Delusions and Suicides: What’s Really Happening with AI and Mental Health

We have been obsessed with doing more hours of sports for years. Science points out that we were wrong

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For decades, the main message that medicine has conveyed to us is that physical exercise should be a priority and it has been summarized with one word: move. Accumulating hours of activity per week has been the great objective that many have had; However, a new study has come to turn this around, to give great importance to the type of exercise and how varied the training menu we follow is when we go to the gym. More and more complete. As we investigate more, the way we exercise is changing, and now a study published at the end of 2026 has suggested that combining different types of exercises reduces the risk of mortality, regardless of whether we do a lot or a little sport in total. That is why the message we must keep in mind is that, instead of doing many hours of a single exercise, it is worth diversifying a little between different modalities, dedicating a little time to each of them. How they have done it. To reach this conclusion, the research team used data from two large groups of people to bring together more than 100,000 people who were followed for more than thirty years. In this way, with different questionnaires, the team measured the active time that each of the people to be analyzed had, establishing a minimum threshold of 20 minutes of activity per week to estimate that someone was really doing it and that it was significant. The objective was to find a correlation between activity levels, the number of these activities and, above all, how they reached adulthood and even when they died in the event that they had not reached the end of the study. The results. The most striking finding is that the group of people who practiced a greater variety of exercise had 19% less total mortality compared to those who limited themselves to a single repetitive routine. But the most important thing is that this good effect of variety in activity is independent of the total volume of time invested in playing sports. That is, the mere fact that exercise is varied has a protective effect in itself, reducing the risk of dying from cardiovascular, respiratory, cancer and other pathologies by between 13% and 41%. The best sports. The study also broke down the individual impact of each discipline, showing a non-linear dose-response relationship, making the greatest benefits noticeable at the beginning, when we went from doing nothing to doing something. In this way, the best sports according to science are the following: Walking: 17% less risk. Racquet sports (such as tennis): 15% less risk. Rowing and calisthenics: 14% less risk. Weight lifting: 13% less risk. Jogging/Easy Running: 11% less risk. Cycling: 4% less risk. Its limitations. Logically, this note has important limitations, since the data were self-reported by the participants with questionnaires and the population analyzed was not too varied, being mostly white, so we must look to see if these percentages may vary by demographics. However, the consensus is clear, since just as nutritionists have been recommending for years that we eat a “rainbow” of different vegetables instead of gorging on just spinach, sports science is now asking us for an “omnivorous movement diet” in which we combine different types of exercise on a daily basis. Images | Anastase Maragos In Xataka | Neither walking nor running: science suggests that the squat is the true “drug” for healthy aging

2,000 years ago the philosopher Seneca said that anger was a burden for people. Today we know that he was wrong

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Seneca did not like irritated people. Almost all of us will agree with him on that. The Hispanic philosopher, however, was so angry about the angry people (apparently the irony) that about twenty centuries ago he dedicated an entire treatise to them. (‘Of Anger’)a work in which he reflects on what anger is, its causes, effects, nature, whether or not it is manageable and how we should act when we feel that we begin to hyperventilate and all kinds of expletives gather in our throats. The problem is that Seneca wasn’t entirely right. “Somber and wild”. Seneca’s work does not leave much room for interpretation. It is titled ‘De Ira’ and throughout its three volumes (available online in the Cervantes Virtual Library) the author is dedicated to telling us about what it is, where it comes from and, above all, how to act in the face of anger. His words connect with the best Stoic tradition when advising us to flee from the slavery of impulses and embrace a serene and reflective attitude. “You demanded of me, dear Newbie, that I write to you about the way to control anger. And I believe that, not without cause, you fear very mainly this passion, which is the darkest and most unbridled of all,” Seneca starts in the first chapter of his treatise, addressed to his brother. “The others undoubtedly have something quiet and placid, but this one is all agitation, unbridled resentment, thirst for war, blood, torture, outburst of superhuman fury.” A form of madness? If the above is not enough to make Seneca’s position clear, throughout the following pages he expands on explaining the meaninglessness of anger. The reason? It leads us to forget ourselves in order to harm others, “throwing ourselves into the midst of swords.” “For this reason some wise men defined anger by calling it ‘brief madness’. Powerless like that to control itself, it forgets all convenience, ignores all affection, is obstinate and stubborn, deaf to the advice of reason, agitated for vain causes.” follow the author. The work is full of reflections that go along that same line, but there are a passage especially eloquent in which Seneca warns us of the extent to which anger can distance us from our purposes, even from who we are: “Man was born to help man; anger for common destruction. Man seeks society, anger isolation; man wants to be useful, anger wants to harm; man helps strangers, anger hurts even the most intimate friend; man is willing to sacrifice himself for other people’s interests, anger rushes into danger in order to drag another along.” It makes sense, right? More or less. Anger may condition our behavior, making us act differently than we would if we were calm, but… Is that necessarily bad? Is anger always “the darkest” of passions, as Seneca says? In the 21st century there are authors who are not so clear. one of them is David Robsona popularizer who has published ‘The intelligence trap’among other psychological essays. In July 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, with thousands of people feeling helpless and frustrated at not being able to move freely, Robson published an article on BBC in which he talked about just that: the positive side of getting angry. Its title is also transparent: “The benefits of anger: the good side of doing things with anger.” Beyond its provocative tone, Robson’s essay is interesting because it summarizes recent scientific research that suggests that acting out of rage may not be as bad as Seneca believed. A source of energy. Which defends Robson is that, beyond its destructive power (something that is not denied) anger can have certain advantages. “Anger and related emotions, such as frustration or irritation, can also have advantages, as long as we know how to channel the energy that arises from them.” Its premise is very simple: instead of investing energy and time in repressing anger, why not try to channel that feeling, take advantage of it, use it as a source of motivation? It may sound crazy or self-destructive, but the author recalls studies that raise the same idea: how disturbance (well managed and channeled) can help us in certain contexts. Angrier, higher performance? Robson’s approach is not far from that of Britt Q. Ford, a professor at the University of Toronto, who define anger as “a mobilizing emotion that is physiologically activated”, generating an activation that can be used for certain physical objectives. He doesn’t talk just to talk. Years ago, a group of scientists found that, when they imagined annoying scenes, the subjects of their experiment performed certain physical tasks harder and faster. Their performance seemed to increase when they felt frustrated because they channeled it through physical activity. Robson cites more studies that show similar effects in athletes who throw balls and jump or even among players in the NBA and National Hockey League in the United States. When suffering flagrant and frustrating fouls, players seemed more motivated to score points. “The angrier they got, the faster they threw or the higher they jumped.” Interesting, but with limits. Of course, it has nuances. a study published in 2011 on “anger, aggression and athleticism” found that “a greater number of technical fouls” usually precedes greater “success in aspects of the game that require power and energy, such as making field goals, rebounding and blocking shots,” but that relationship is by no means infallible. Ball throwing requires mechanical movements, the result of repetition and training. Things changed if we talked about aspects of the same sport that require other skills, such as “care.” Goodbye muses, hello pissed off. A good dose of rage can not only have its advantages on the court. Robson quote another study which suggest that anger can improve our “persistence and perseverance in the face of cognitive challenges.” How did they come to that conclusion? Scientists frustrated a group of people by giving them tests that in theory tested their intelligence but were actually impossible … Read more

The world has been fascinated by the collapse of the Mayans for decades. In reality, almost everything we thought we knew was wrong.

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They cultivated fields, raised livestock, built some of the most amazing buildings on the planet, developed a rich culture that included advanced astronomical knowledge that still intrigue today to the experts. The Mayans are one of the most fascinating civilizations on the planet. And rightly so. Without it it is impossible to tell the history of Central America. However, little by little and as technology allows us to delve into their secrets, we begin to understand something: much of what we thought we knew about the Mayans was wrong. And that includes its collapse. What happened to the Mayans? The question is very simple. His answer not so much anymore. As our knowledge of the Mayan civilization has expanded (thanks to resources such as LiDAR technology) has also mutated the idea that historians had of its decline. I remembered it recently in Guardian Marcus Haraldsson remembering what we know about Tikalone of the largest urban centers of the Mayans, located in what is now Guatemala. “Sudden and disastrous”? The most recent stele located at the site dates back to the year 869 ADwhich leaves the question of what happened in Tikal from that date on. For a time historians assessed the possibility of a “sudden and disastrous” collapse that marked its fate; But today that explanation seems increasingly distant. Now experts are leaning towards another option: a broad period of decline of around 200 years during which farmers moved north and south and powerful urban centers were abandoned in favor of settlements such as Chichén Itzá, Uxmal or Mayapán, towards the north of the Yucatán Peninsula. There is even talk of the period Classic Terminalwhich goes from the years 750 to 1050. Changing perspective. This perspective has been adapted over the decades and goes beyond the period of decline of the Mayan civilization. “We are no longer really talking about collapse, but about decline, transformation and reorganization of society, as well as a continuity of culture,” comment to Guardian Kenneth E. Seligson, associate professor of archeology at California State University (CSU). “There have been several similar changes in places like Rome. (But) we rarely talk about the great Roman collapse anymore because they re-emerged in various forms, just like the Mayans.” But… What happened? What exactly happened for many of the main Mayan settlements (not all) to begin to collapse towards the 9th and 10th centuries It remains a complex and highly discussed topic. Today the authors point out a combination of factors including changes in trade routes, adverse weather, severe and prolonged droughts and wars, among others. The truth is that in the middle of 2026, researchers continue collecting clues that helps us clear up unknowns about that period. The importance of water. You don’t have to go far back to read new discoveries that tell us precisely about the collapse of the Mayan civilization. Last August a group of scientists published a article in which they basically emphasized the “important role” that “prolonged droughts” played in the Mayan decline. For their study, the researchers analyzed a stalagmite located in a cave in the Yucatan, a true geological and archaeological treasure if its oxygen isotopes are analyzed. The examination revealed a series of periods of severe drought between 871 and 1021, during the Terminal Classic, stages marked by water shortages during which the Mayans found it “extremely difficult” to grow their crops. It may seem exaggerated, but the study revealed eight droughts during the rainy season that lasted at least three years. Not only that. The longest drought lasted about 13 years. Other previous studies, carried out from sediments collected in the Chichankanab lagoon or stalactites rescued in Belizehad already suggested the role that climate played in the Mayan collapse. Question of droughts (and something else). Months after that study, in November, Benjamin Gwinneth, from the Université de Montréal (UdeM), published another that helps complete the ‘photo’. The Canadian institution recalls that between 750 and 900 AD the population of the Mayan lowlands suffered “a significant demographic and political decline” that coincided with “episodes of intense drought.” What Gwinneth’s work questions is whether this collapse is explained only by the lack of water. Curiously, their research is also based on the analysis of sediment samples dating back to around 3,300 years ago. And what exactly did he do? Gwinneth dedicated himself to analyzing samples taken from Laguna Itzán, in present-day Guatemala, near an archaeological site Maya. To be precise, they focused on three “geochemical indicators” that reveal the evolution of fires, vegetation and population density in the area (something they estimate thanks to fecal stanols) for thousands of years. The first conclusion they obtained is that the first settlements appeared in the area 3,200 years ago and for centuries the Mayans cultivated, burned to clear forests and used the ashes as natural fertilizer. It also gradually increased the population of the area. Over time they even changed their “agricultural strategy”, dispensing with fire. A “stable” climate. The second conclusion (and this is the interesting part) is that, unlike Mayan populations located further north that did suffer “devastating droughts”, in Itzán the climate was relatively “stable” thanks in part to its geographical location, near the Cordillera. Curiously, that did not free Itzán from the crisis that they suffered in other areas of the Mayan world. The question is obvious: Why? If it kept raining there, what dragged them into the crisis? “Although there was no drought in the area, the population decreased during the Terminal Classic period. Indicators show a drastic drop, traces of agriculture disappear and the site was abandoned,” Gwinneth points out.which recalls that some archaeologists place the beginning of the Mayan collapse in the Itzán area. Why is it important? Because it suggests that drought (no matter how stubborn) is not enough on its own to explain the Mayan decline. “The answer lies in the interconnection of Mayan societies,” reflects the expert. “Cities did not exist in isolation. They formed a complex network of commercial ties, … Read more

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