years

We have been blaming hygiene for our allergies for almost 40 years. Ancestral DNA has just shown that the problem is more complex

by

Every time a child develops a asthmarhinitis or eczema, one of the questions we ask ourselves is why it happens, and one of the ‘culprits’ we point to is excess cleaning. Right now it is a reality that we live in environments that are too neat, using disinfectant gel all the time and not letting the little ones play in the mud because logically they can get stained. However, science here has ‘traveled’ to the past to find out the origin of allergies. What have they done? Here two new and massive studies based on the analysis of prehistoric DNA are putting the famous “hygiene hypothesis“And the paradigm we face now is that the evolutionary adaptations that our immune system has developed over the last 10,000 years to survive pandemics, curiously, are designed to protect you from allergies, not to cause them. A return to the past. To understand the plot twist, we must go back to 1989 where epidemiologist David Strachan proposed the hygiene hypothesis. Here it was proposed that the lack of exposure to microbes during childhood in most modern societies deregulated the immune system, since it literally did not grow with good training under its belt. In this way, it was proposed that, by not having real pathogens to fight against, the body created an imbalance that caused the immune system itself to attack substances that are not actually a threat, such as pollen or mites. And it seemed to make sense. A genetic journey. The first blow to this hypothesis has been dealt by a great published research in Nature this same month of April. Here the researchers analyzed almost 16,000 ancient genomes from individuals who lived thousands of years ago. What they discovered here is that the transition to agriculture in the Neolithic changed everything, since human societies became dense, we began to coexist closely with animals and, with this, large-scale infectious diseases arrived. But these pathogens that we began to face, despite the many deaths they generated, also favored hundreds of immune variants to ensure our own survival. But there is more. This is where parallel research that is revolutionizing our understanding of asthma and autoimmunity comes into play. Here is an article preprint has crossed ancient DNA with the modern complete genome with the aim of looking for differences between our DNA and that of our ancestors. Logic dictated that a system “revolutionized” by evolution to fight bacterial and viral infections of the past would be the cause of today’s allergies. But the data show exactly the opposite, as the study reveals that genetic variants that were positively selected in recent millennia have strengthened defenses in “barrier tissues” such as the intestine, against pathogens, but at the same time reduce allergic inflammation. The variants. Among these defense genes We have, for example, LYZ, which codes for lysozine, a fundamental antimicrobial enzyme in our secretions that destroys part of the bacteria. We also have FUT6, which is involved in protein fucosylation, a process vital to the interaction between our mucosal immune system and the gut microbiome. Why are we allergic, then? If our genetics have been evolving for 10,000 years to protect us from allergies in the lungs and intestines, the question is inevitable: why do cases continue to increase? Here science suggests that the problem is not simply an excess of cleaning in the present, but a profound imbalance. In this way, we do not need to catch diseases or live surrounded by human society, but the problem is that our immune system, genetically adapted to the strong pathogenic pressures of the first agricultural societies, expects to encounter a series of commensal microbes in the environment. The ‘problem’ is that these microbes are no longer present in modern cities and that is why the genes we have with a protective function cannot do their job correctly. Images | Drazen Zigic on Freepik In Xataka | The allergy season in Spain has been extended by 25 days since the 90s. And 2026 brings very bad news about it

Huesca and Lleida were separated by 110 kilometers. It has taken Spain 25 years to connect them by highway

by

Spain has a maxim that is repeated when we talk about roads: things go slowly. Pretty slowly, in fact. You just have to see that the A-11, one of the great Castilian-Leonese highways has been in operation since 1995. Or the almost 30 years since the A-60 has been planned without having been completed. Andalusia is not spared either, with roads that They are beginning to approach two decades before finishing. And a halfway case is that of the A-22 between Huesca and Lleida. Barely 110 kilometers separate these two cities in northeastern Spain and, however, it has taken more than a quarter of a century for a highway to be completed between them. The culmination for the luck of the Aragonese and Catalans took place last October. That month, the section between Huesca-Siétamo was finally inaugurated. Just 12.6 kilometers for which seven years of work have been needed but which should have been resolved in 2021. Perhaps that is why the celebration was bitter. 25 years for an hour’s drive They counted on Aragon Digital that the completion of the highway between Huesca and Lleida only had Minister Óscar Puente as a political representative. None of the Aragonese officials made an appearance (autonomous community, provincial council or city council). And it is that the last bypass next to the city (it connected with the A-22 but also gave an exit to the N-240 known as Ronda Norte de Huesca) has been full of controversy. With it, the last of the 11 sections into which the construction of the A-22 has been divided has been completed. Those 12.6 kilometers mentioned above began operating in 2018 and the forecast is that they will be ready in 2021. The investment was 61.5 million euros but citizens have had to wait another four years before being able to enjoy the entire road. The Ministry of Transport explained With the inauguration, eight of the kilometers of the new link have been newly built, leaving the old national N-240 as a service road. In addition to the connection with this road that acts as a ring road, it has also joined the A-23. A road, the latter, that will finally be linked to the A-21 since the tender has been awarded to resolve the link between both roads and resolve the bottleneck that was generated in Jaca. But returning to the case of the A-22, the issue is that the highway was designed in the Transportation Infrastructure Plan 2000-2007. However, in 2004 no relevant step had yet been taken in the construction of the new highway and the work became part of the state promises again in 2005 with the Strategic Infrastructure and Transportation Plan. By then, the intention is for the highway to be fully operational in 2012. The A-22 was one of those infrastructures that was affected by the 2008 crisis. However, despite the adjustments in 2010, the times and investments were not extended excessively. And before that year, the highway had less than 30 kilometers in operation but little by little the sections were advancing and the vast majority of the work was ready between 2010 and 2012. It was, therefore, the section between Huesca and Siétamo that has lengthened the completion of the road. In Herald They covered the news of the awarding of this last section in 2018 but already pointed out at that time that a situation that had been completely stopped for five years before was being unblocked. The promise, as we said, is that it would be ready in 2021. Thus, the A-22 highway has accumulated years and years of delay despite being practically finished. The little more than 10 kilometers that were necessary to close the work have taken 12 years to carry out, the same as it took to have the remaining hundred kilometers ready. Now, at least, Aragonese and Catalans can breathe a sigh of relief and finally have a fully modern road to connect Huesca with Lleida. Photos | Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility In Xataka | Spanish roads have a problem in 2026: repairing a kilometer of asphalt is more expensive than ever

two years later it has few travelers, empty hotels and frustrated residents

by

He was supposed to December 16, 2023 It was going to mark a before and after in the history of Mexico. After years of efforts and works (also controversies) that day it began to circulate between Campeche and Cancún the Mayan Train“a magnum opus”, in words of the then president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who aspired to promote the development of some of the most impoverished regions in the southeast of the country. Almost two and a half years later, December 16, 2023 is however remembered for another, very different reason: the beginning of a huge disappointment. one who we are getting to know little by little. “No real benefit”. That things are not going well good at all The Mayan Train is nothing new. In December The Country public a chronicle in which he revealed that, at least during its beginnings, the service has carried many fewer passengers than expected. What is new is the approach that just contributed Reuters: Your reporters have traveled part of the route, speaking with locals, and have verified something worrying: it is no longer just that the train moves few passengers, it is that the growth that it promised is not noticeable either. “We don’t get any real benefit,” admits a woman in Quintana Roo. The Mayan Train, let us remember, was launched in December 2023 with an inaugural route between Campeche-Cancún. A year later, with Claudia Sheinbaum at the head of the Government, added more routes. In total it offers a circuit of more than 1,500 km that crosses Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo, where some of the poorest regions of Mexico are located. Today the project continues to undergo important changes. In fact, the process was recently completed for its control to pass at the hands of the army. This same year, justice has also reminded the Government that it must respect the law in the development of “Section 5”, between Tulum and Cancún. It is estimated that the overall train budget already exceeds 25 billion of dollars. A complicated debut. The objective of such a megaproject was to provide the southeast of the country with an infrastructure capable of improving its transportation and tourism. “Economic and tourism development”, summarized in 2023 López Obrador. During its visit to the area, Reuters has however encountered a quite different reality: local communities that, despite being located near the railway, have barely noticed its effects. The agency speaks of residents still unable to escape poverty, lack of well-paid work and absence of basic services. Reuters spoke, for example, with a woman from Vida y Esperanza, in the state of Quintana Roo, who lives in a curious paradox: the train’s power lines pass almost above her house, but to have energy she needs a solar panel and a rented generator. In the same area there is a school, located near a railway depot, which also lacks a stable electricity supply. The reason: problems with property titles, something common in rural areas, but which the center hoped would change thanks to the megaproject. “Empty words”. Quintana Roo is not the only point on the route where Reuters has found locals frustrated with the Mayan Train. In Xpujil, another town in Campeche near the tracks, a 50-year-old farmer complains of chronic water shortages, a problem that the Mexican government promised would be solved when it inaugurated the Adolfo López Mateos-Xpujil aqueduct. His faucet, however, still doesn’t release a drop. “They were empty words,” resume the farmer told Reuters, who estimates that only 70% of Campeche’s population has access to running water. Those who are not so lucky must look outside. A percentage: 13.2%. The agency also provides information that has been echoed by media outlets such as The Impartial and that helps to understand the reach that, at least for the moment, the Mayan Train is having. During the construction of the megaproject, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi) recorded an economic growth of 13.2% in Quintana Roo, a percentage that is mainly explained by investments in infrastructure. That momentum didn’t last long. In the first months of 2025, the curve inverted, changing the trend: from growth to an economic contraction of around 9.7%. It is not the only percentage that invites us to reflect. Although Quinta Roo managed to reduce unemployment and improve its formal hiring data, most of the workers of Yucatán (60%) continue in informal jobs. At the moment the Mayan Train does not seem to have corrected it. Nor has its activity promoted the hotels promoted in the area in the heat of the railway megaproject. For most of 2025, its monthly occupancy rates were, on average, between 5 and 24%. One of Calakmul’s accommodations was barely 20% full when Reuters reporters visited it a few months ago. The challenge: connect with travelers. The underlying problem is that the Mayan Train is having a hard time connecting with the two large markets from which it must supply travelers: local residents and foreign tourists. In December The Country revealed which, during its premiere, registered much lower demand than expected. If the National Tourism Promotion Fund expected that in its first year of operations the Mayan Train would transport 74,000 people a day, the reality is that it stayed at around 3,200. That is, 5%. In your latest report Reuters reveals that the “photo” has not improved much: the income it generated last year did not even cover 13% of the service’s operating costs. What does the Government say? From the Government the discourse is something different. Last summer the Executive claimed that the train was going “very well” and specified that, since its debut, the service had accumulated more than 1.5 million users. “Some sections are more used than others, remember that more trains are about to arrive, which will give greater capacity to operate with a greater number of passengers throughout the peninsula,” argued Sheinbaum. The tone is similar to that used just a few days ago, during … Read more

Today the sequel that took 24 years to film and ended up failing at the box office after spending a huge budget arrives on Netflix

by

It took Ridley Scott 24 years to return to the Coliseum. When he did it with ‘Gladiator II‘, a cast that was breathtaking was brought in, with Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal and a budget that, depending on who you ask, exceeded 310 million dollars with the expectation of repeating the magic of its predecessor, which had won five Oscars in 2000. It didn’t quite succeed, but in streaming it has a second chance: you have it starting today Tuesday, April 28 on Netflix. The first announcement of a sequel to ‘Gladiator’ It dates back to June 2001, just a year after the release of the original. And Russell Crowe was on board even though his Maximus had died on screen. For years, Scott toyed with crazy ideas that included the resurrection of the character or a plot about the afterlife. The project stalled when DreamWorks sold the rights to the franchise to Paramount Pictures in 2006. What got the sequel out of limbo was that Scott saw Paul Mescal in the first few episodes of ‘Normal People’ and wanted to work with him. Scott also wanted to resolve the plot of Lucius Verus, then a child, now sixteen years after Maximus’ death. He lives under another identity in North Africa, until the Roman army invades and destroys his home, kills his wife and enslaves him. Brought to Rome as a gladiator, Lucius falls under the control of a former slave turned arms dealer, who uses him in the arena of the Colosseum while he secretly weaves his own plans to seize the throne from the corrupt twin emperors Caracalla and Geta. And so began an eventful filming, interrupted by the screenwriters’ strikes, which sent costs skyrocketing, according to some sources, beyond $300 million. With a final collection of 462 million worldwide, the business was somewhat lame. However, with its passage through platforms (in the United States it is exclusively on Paramount+, and has been on VOD for months), it is very possible that ‘Gladiator II’ can boast more comfortable profits and thus give rise to the already planned ‘Gladiator III’ in which Mescal has already expressed his interest. In Xataka | Today the animated spin-off of the platform’s only powerful franchise premieres on Netflix: ‘Stranger Things’

2026 marks the end of growth for years

by

A year ago, ask for a pay rise It had a certain linear logic: more experience, seniority and a higher job category were equivalent to having access to a higher salary range. The salary comparison guide for the technology sector that Manfred published in 2025 With five large technology companies, it offered a fairly predictable structure, where junior, mid and senior employees followed an upward and uniform trend between companies. Moving up a category guaranteed, almost automatically, that the payroll also improved. However, the 2026 update From that same study it comes with data from more companies, greater detail in the data and a very different reading of the technological labor market today: salary bands are expanding, categories are multiplying and the gap between what one company or another pays for the same profile is widening. This year, the size and type of the company you work for matters more than the category and seniority of the employee. Cycle change: from rises to stagnation. One of the most striking changes that emerge from the data provided in the 2026 study Manfred’s view is that some of the participating companies practically copy the previous year’s salary structure. Cabify maintains its salary ranges in line with those of the previous comparison, with levels ranging from 27,000 euros at entry level L1 for the most junior, to 138,000 euros at L6 for senior employees with positions of responsibility. For its part, the corporate health platform Alan has also offered data to February 2026 date. Its thirteen-level salary structure allows it to achieve small progressive rises in place of large salary jumps with an entry base that has changed little in the last year, but in which it is easier to advance since they are smaller sections. For example, a level A0 (internship) starts with a salary of between 35,000 and 41,000 euros and a Junior (C0) receives a base salary of between 65,000 and 76,000 euros plus company shares. A senior employee (D) is in a range of between 79,000 and 91,000 euros plus a supplement in shares. The highest levels such as Principal (I) remain between 160,000 and 203,000 euros. In this sense, the health company continues to pay well above the Spanish market average, and that position has not changed one bit compared to 2025. AI moves the market…and salaries. Although Cabify and Alan remain the same, Factorial goes in the opposite direction and makes the most relevant change in the entire comparison. In 2026, the company has renamed all of its engineering roles by adding “AI” to the job title: Junior AI Engineer, AI Engineer, Senior AI Engineer. It is the first Spanish company to make this move and it is not just a change for posture, it will also be associated with a salary increase in those stripes. For example, a Staff AI Engineer now charges between 82,300 and 106,950 euros in total gross compensation, compared to between 86,000 and 98,000 euros the previous year. For the Distinguished AI Engineer category it rises from 180,000 to 198,000 euros, now equal to the VP of Engineering. This cape represents a declaration of intentions from Factorial, in which grow as a specialist In AI you have the same salary ceiling as managing teams. More companies, more context. The main difference between the 2025 study and that of 2026 is that in the previous edition five technology companies were analyzed, but in 2026 their number doubles, incorporating Buffer, Revolut, Datadog, Amazon, New Relic and JOIN to the database. This incorporation radically changes how the technological labor market is read, because the salary differences between the extremes are now much larger than in 2025. That is, salaries do not change, but rather the analysis data is expanded, making it closer to reality. JOIN, the recruitment platform, has shared its salary ranges with Manfred. So it becomes a new useful reference for the current market. A Senior Engineer on this platform earns between 67,000 and 85,000 euros in base salary. At the other extreme, Datadog places its Senior SWE with an average of 135,000 euros in annual compensation, and Buffer makes public salaries starting at the L3 level with an entry floor for Spain of 129,000 euros. The company weighs more than the experience. In 2025, moving up from junior to senior almost automatically implied a relevant salary jump, and that logic was consistent between companies. The 2026 study dilutes that pattern. A mid profile can range from 39,000 euros in the lower part of Factorial to more than 80,000 euros in Glovo (its L3 charges 82,800 euros). For senior profiles the dispersion is even greater: from 60,000 euros in the low band of Cabify to 135,000 euros on average in Datadog, with salaries at two speeds that AI only amplifies. The practical result is that career progression no longer guarantees the same salary jump that it guaranteed in 2025. As indicated in the report 11th Adecco Salary Monitorchanging companies (to a multinational) has more impact than moving up within it. For a Senior profile, the difference between work in a Spanish company and in a multinational with a presence in Spain it can exceed 50,000 euros annually. More salary transparency imposed by Europe. Behind the new data of this comparison there is an important change that has not gone unnoticed by Manfred experts: the European Salary Transparency Directive (2023/970)which forces companies in Spain to offer salary transparency publishing the salary ranges of their profiles to avoid discrimination, putting end to salary secrecy. Meanwhile, the Spanish tech ecosystem continues to operate with little salary transparency. According to the report Labor Market Guide 2026 prepared by Hays, the IT sector will see salary increases of 6% in 2026 in Spain, but this average hides the same story as Manfred’s study: the increases are not uniform, and this salary increase will be more noticeable depending on the type of company and the relationship of the position with the development of AI. In Xataka | Working … Read more

The most predictable ocean system in the Pacific has collapsed for the first time in 40 years. And no one really knows why.

by

For the first time in at least 40 years of systematic records, the Gulf of Panama’s “seasonal upwelling” (the mechanism that pushes cold, nutrient-rich water from the bottom to the surface every first quarter of the year) collapsed in 2025. 2026, fortunately, is not repeating the pattern. But what researchers are discovering is no more reassuring. Has the outcrop “gone”? Not exactly: it didn’t completely disappear; but it started 42 days late, lasted only 12 days (compared to the usual 66) and cooled the waters to 23 degrees (instead of the average 19). And yet, it is counterintuitive. First, because La Niña (the ENSO phase that ruled in 2025) It usually favors blooms in the eastern Pacific. Second, because until now we thought that warming intensifies large outcrops. And, third, because the upwelling has returned this year (with some collapses in between). None of this fits with what we have learned over 30 years of direct ‘in situ’ measurements (and satellite images). But wait a second, what is this “outcrop” thing? It is an effect of the increase in intensity of the ‘Panama low-level jet‘; a jet that pushes surface water deeper and allows cold, nutrient-rich water from the depths of the Gulf of Panama to rise. This outcrop is key to the life of some 60,000 km2 of the Pacific. The fact is that it is also the most predictable system in the Pacific. Since we started measuring it, he had never missed his appointment. What happened in 2025. The allies did not have the strength to break the thermal stratification of the surface and, therefore, were not able to activate the outcrop other than as a simulation. And why should we care? To begin with because, according to the same researcherss, “more than 95% of Panama’s marine biomass comes from the Pacific thanks to the rise of nutrients”: that is 2.76% of the GDP of the Panamanian republic. But it goes beyond the Central American country: the upwelling areas occupy less than 1% of the world’s ocean surface, but They generate around 50% of fishing catches of the planet It also has an important oceanic and climate impact, of course; but it tells us very interesting things about what we can expect in the future. Because if, suddenly, a phenomenon that we thought was very stable (and that we have known about for as long as we can remember) can disappear, what can happen? What, in reality, is the Gulf of Panama telling us? Image | O’Dea et al. (2025) In Xataka | 2023 was the year in which El Niño and climate change competed. In the Amazon we already know who won

We have been thinking for 40 years that Spain escaped Chernobyl because it was far away. AEMET has discovered that it was pure luck

by

“When the lava enters the tanks, it will cause approximately 7,000 cubic meters of water to overheat and evaporate, causing a significant thermal explosion. Our estimates are between two and four megatons. It will destroy absolutely everything within a 30-kilometer radius, including the three remaining reactors at Chernobyl. Then, all the radioactive material in the nuclei will be ejected with virulence and propagated by a large seismic wave. It can reach approximately 200 kilometers and could be lethal to the entire population of kyiv and much of Minsk. The radiation release will be immense and will impact Soviet Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, as well as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and East Germany.” Since, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, AEMET published meteorological reconstruction that explained why Spain was left out of the radioactive cloud that affected a good part of Europe, I can’t forget those words from the miniseries which HBO released a few years ago. Mostly because it was pure luck. Pure luck? But Ukraine is very far away. That’s what we used to think, that Spain was spared the hardest part of the Chernobyl hit because we were so far away. However, data from meteorologist Benito Jose Fuentes They say something else: three successive atmospheric reconfigurations that, at the critical moment, sent the radioactive cloud in another direction. But let’s go step by step. Indeed, on April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant became an unstable “pressure cooker” whose explosion spread radiation throughout much of the continent. In fact, that radiation reached Spain shortly after: there is evidence of air filters in Valencia that detected the radioactivity on May 2, 3 and 4. However, we avoided the worst of the blow. According to Fuentes Lópezthe peninsula was at least twice (on April 29 and the days before May 2) “one turn of the wind” away from receiving a direct blow. Reconstructing the disaster. Sources Lopez has published a simplified simulation that reconstructs on a cartographic scale the evolution of the wind at medium and high levels of the atmosphere. This simulation is what gives us the fundamental keys. To begin with, at midday on April 26, a high pressure ridge extended between the Chernobyl zone and Scandinavia. This caused the winds (at 1,700 meters above sea level) to channel the pollutants to the north and Belarus, the Baltic republics, Sweden and Finland took the first hit. The world found out what was happening, precisely, through the sensors of a Swedish nuclear power plant two days later. Spain plays it. On April 29, the pattern changed and a storm in the Mediterranean (and a ridge in Portugal) turned the wind towards Central Europe. According to Fuentes López’s simulations, with this new direction it was a matter of hours before the radioactivity reached Spain. However, between May 1 and 2, a trough pushed the radioactive cloud towards Great Britain (and the Portuguese ridge acted as a wall that diverted the rest of the smaller clouds towards Italy and the Balkans). A reminder. The curious thing about all this is that, according to AEMET datathe dispersion was due to higher atmospheric waves at high levels and not to surface patterns such as storms and anticyclones. That is to say, the work (in addition to a mind-blowing work of atmospheric history) is a reminder that we normally relate to a small part of the weather. That, of course, is a mistake. The atmosphere is a very complex creature full of levels, teleconnections and strange relationships. We are at stake understanding it better. And I am no longer talking about climate change, or phenomena of that type. I’m saying that in most cases, as we already explained many expertsthe profound psychological, social and cultural consequences “turned out to be a much bigger problem than the radiation.” At the climatic level they will also be. And we really don’t know how to handle them well. Image | AEMET In Xataka | We believed that the “elephant’s foot” was the most radioactive point in Chernobyl reactor 4. we were wrong

A young man has solved a mathematical problem that lasted 60 years in 80 minutes with ChatGPT. That’s the least interesting thing about the story.

by

He is 23 years old, his name is Liam Price and he has no advanced mathematical training. Even so, a few days ago he opened the Erdös problem websitepicked one at random and pasted it into ChatGPT. I didn’t know the history of the problem or who had tried it before. What he received back seemed like a good solution, and after consulting with a friend who was studying mathematics, the two realized they might be on to something special. A few hours later Terence Tao, one of the most renowned mathematicians in the world, confirmed that problem #1196 of Erdös, a conjecture about primitive sets of integers that had not been solved since 1966, had a solution. I had found her GPT-5.4 Pro in just 80 minutes. Not like that. This problem analyzed a question about the behavior of a particular mathematical sum on primitive sets, that is, sets of integers where none divides the other, when those numbers become very large. Jared Lichtman, a Stanford mathematician, had spent years on the problem and had made partial progress, but he and those who had tried before were starting from the same starting point that seemed like the right path. A novel idea. GPT-5.4 used another starting point. He stayed in the airmetic terrain and used a special function called von Mangoldt functiona classic tool of number theory known for its connections to prime numbers and Riemann zeta function. No one had thought about that approach to the problem, and as Lichtman explained when talking about the OpenAI model solution, “The LLM took a completely different route.” The achievement is real, but with nuances. Litchman praised the proposed solution by GPT-5.4, but there is one detail that has been omitted in many comments on this event: the raw output of ChatGPT was, in the words of this mathematician, “pretty poor.” This solution made it necessary for several experts to interpret it, detail it and extract from it the underlying idea that allowed the conjecture to be solved. Price didn’t know he had the solution until his friend read it, and he wasn’t sure until Tao confirmed it. The official repository of AI contributions to Erdös problemsmaintained by Tao himself on GitHub, classify the result as a solution generated in human-AI collaboration, not as a solution developed solely by AI. The distinction is important. A previous scandal. A few weeks ago Sebastien Bubeck, a researcher at OpenAI, posted on X that GPT-5 had “solved” several Erdös problems. That publication exceeded 100,000 views, but the mathematical community and also that surrounding the AI ​​industry criticized that statement. Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind, called that statement “shameful.” What had actually happened is that the model I had found solutions to already solved problems on the web. Bubeck finished deleting the original tweet and tried to back down, but all this raised doubts about the validity of the application of AI to solve mathematical problems. AI and the mathematical success rate. Terence Tao and Nat Sothanaphan maintain the aforementioned record of all AI contributions to Erdös problems on GitHub. Each of the entries in that list or table is classified with a traffic light: green for complete solution, yellow for partial progress, and red for failure. In the category of completely AI-generated solutions with no known prior literature there are three green, fourteen yellow, and eight red traffic lights. However, the repository itself adds a unique comment: those who try to use AI to solve these problems and fail do not usually report it, so it is likely that AI has been applied “silently” to a large number of these problems without success, and those attempts do not appear in any table. There is a clear bias here because only successes generate headlines. Trying to measure what matters. In February 2026, eleven mathematicians created the initiative “First Proof“. In it they included ten mathematical problems that arose naturally in their research projects. For each one they included encrypted answers uploaded to a verification site, and they gave the AI ​​systems a week to try to solve those problems that had never appeared in any training data set. Preliminary results indicate that today AI models cannot overcome that barrier autonomously, and what happens is that there are still limits to what AI can really contribute in mathematics. But then, is there a revolution or not? Terence Tao offered a clear explanation as to why GPT-5.4 had succeeded where others had failed for 60 years. What had happened was what he described as a collective blockage of the mathematical community, because everyone started from the same origin because it was “the natural one”, the one marked by tradition. The AI ​​didn’t know that was the “correct” way to start, and that ignorance turned out to be an advantage. It’s not that the AI ​​was smarter, it’s that it had no biases about how to approach the problem. Now it remains to be seen if this novel way of trying to solve problems in unorthodox ways works. This will confirm whether what happened with Erdös’s problem number 1196 was an isolated case or whether a 23-year-old boy has managed to change our vision of how to tackle mathematical problems. Image | Universal Pictures In Xataka | There is a mathematically perfect way to cut a ham and cheese sandwich and it has been discussed since 1938.

We have been using the excuse of hunger for years to justify our bad mood. Science has just proven us right

by

There are people who when they are hungry seem to completely lose control and jump at the slightest, making it difficult to approach them. And it is not a lack of patience for waiting for lunch or dinner, nor is it a personality trait, but rather It’s pure biology. Here society has even given it a name to explain this phenomenon that relates quick anger to the desire to eat: ‘Hangry‘, a fusion between hungry (hungry in English) and angry (angry in English). The definitive experiment. Although this attitude has been internalized in society as a personality trait, like someone who wakes up and can’t have a conversation, science has a lot to say. Specifically, a study published in the journal PLOS ONE in 2022 continued to 64 adults for 21 days to see what happened. Using an app, participants recorded their levels of hunger, anger, irritability, pleasure and arousal five times a day, accumulating more than 9,100 observations. And here the results, the truth is, were devastating: being hungry was directly associated with negative emotions, such as anger or being irascible. A great anger. If we go into detail, the feeling of hunger It was able to explain 34% of the cases of anger, 37% of the cases of irritability and also a 38% drop in the feeling of pleasure. But the most important thing is that this correlation remained firm even after scientists controlled for variables such as age, sex, weight, or even personality traits when not hungry. Because? The answer to these mood changes seems to lie specifically in what we need to ingest: glucose. And it makes a lot of sense, because this carbohydrate acts as the main fuel for our brain and its scarcity generates a true energy crisis that forces the body to draw energy from other places, such as ketone bodies. The brain here is a really demanding organ, since, although it only represents 2% of the body weight, it consumes around 20% of the energy, and in these situations it is noticeable. And it is proven. Without going any further, a study published in 2014 analyzed 107 couples for 21 days, measuring their blood glucose and measuring aggression. The best thing is that they quantified it with a voodoo doll that represented their partner and a pin cushion. From here it was seen that the lower the glucose levels were at the end of the day, the more pins were stuck in the doll. The conclusion seemed very clear: glucose acts as the “fuel of self-control.” Without it, the prefrontal cortex, which is in charge of regulating impulses, loses its ability to stop the amygdala, which is the center of primitive and less rational emotions. What happens. When the brain detects this lack of “fuel”, it does not interpret it as “the restaurant reservation has been delayed”, but as a vital threat that there is a lack of food in the environment. That is why to compensate, the adrenal glands release both cortisol and adrenaline, which are involved in the stress situation. Logically, an increase in these hormones generates irritability that is typical of hypoglycemia. Although if we go further, there are studies that suggest that the brain, in emergency situations such as hunger, prioritizes survival over patience or social courtesy, making us ‘jump’ at any interaction. The good news. Here, being aware of what is happening to us and that it is related to hunger is the most valuable thing to avoid getting angry with our partner or friend. Logically, this makes the brain understand that it is not in the middle of the jungle and that it needs to look for food as soon as possible, but it will only delay a little returning to the glucose levels to which it is accustomed. Images | freepik In Xataka | We thought that quenching hunger with Ozempic was the definitive remedy against obesity. Until we look at the muscle

Almost 2,000 years ago the Romans were already returning home from their trips with souvenirs. The best proof was hidden in Soria

by

You’ve probably done it more than once. You go on vacation to Cancun, Florence, Barcelona or that beach that you like so much and once there you decide to buy a souvenir to take home. Maybe a magnet for the fridge or a figurine for the living room. It seems like a very modern gesture, but almost 2,000 years ago the Romans who moved around the world were already doing something very similar, although not exactly as tourists. We know it thanks to an old cup bronze found in Berlanga del Dueroa small town in Soria. At first glance it looks like just another ‘glass’, but in reality it is connected to one of the most fascinating Roman mega-constructions of all time. In a place in Soria… Archeology advances thanks to hours of study and field work. Also (sometimes) by pure strokes of luck. It happened some time ago in Berlanga del Duero, a town of 800 inhabitants located in Soria. Over there, “by chance”historians have found a Roman cup, a small hemispherical bronze bowl with enamels. Studies have dated it to the 2nd century AD. Said like this, it may not seem like a big deal (fortunately we have many Roman bowls and there are larger, more lavish and older ones), but Berlanga’s piece has something special: it is a roman souvenir which in its day traveled more than a thousand kilometers. A souvenir for travelers? More or less. Archaeologists believe that the Berlanga cup is “a souvenir brought to the peninsula by a Celtiberian soldier”, as they explain from the CSIC. Its purpose was not (just) to serve as another bowl. It also had a symbolic value, similar to what we can give in 2026 to the figures that we bring with us after a trip to Japan, Italy or those memories that help us evoke the months we spent on Erasmus in Berlin. If we take into account that the piece was manufactured around the 2nd century AD The above would be enough to highlight it above the rest of the cups that we preserve from ancient Rome, but the piece recovered in Soria has another extra value: its origin. The key: Hadrian’s Wall. The piece is linked to Hadrian’s Wallthe Roman fortification begun in the time of Emperor Hadrian to protect the province of Britain from the raids of the Picts. We have been able to establish the link thanks to two pieces of information. First, its origin. The cup was made with metals that surely came from the mines of Wales or Durham. Second, the details that decorate the glass, which include nods to the Roman military fortification. “Memory of…” It doesn’t matter if they are from Barcelona, ​​Milan, New York or any other city in the world, tourist souvenirs always tend to share one characteristic: they include the name of the destination and some of its most visited icons. The famous “Memory of XXX” accompanied by a silhouette of the Sagrada Familia, the Duomo or the empire state. Something similar happens in the Berlanga cup. In addition to the enamels, its decoration represents Hadrian’s Wall “through a frieze punctuated with turrets”, CSIC clarifies. Not only that. The piece also includes inscriptions directly related to the military camps in the eastern zone: Cilurnum, Onno, Vindobala and Condercum. The researchers have also noticed a curious detail: the names seem arranged to be read from west to east, as if the cup represented the appearance of the wall for people who saw it from inside. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Is it a unique piece? No. And although it may seem contradictory, that is another of the characteristics that makes the Berlanga glass so special: it is and is not unique, just like many of the souvenirs that we bring back from our trips or that are sometimes given to us by companies for which we have worked. The piece rescued in Soria is one of the five “Hadrian’s Wall Cups” that are known, enameled vessels linked to the fortification of ancient Britain. The first was found in 1725 in an English villa. Since then, two other similar pieces have been found in England and one more in France. Also a couple of fragments, one of them discovered in the 19th century between Zamora and León. That piece in question is known as the ‘Hildeburgh Fragment’ (name of its buyer) and is kept in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. The Berlanga cup is closer to us: it is kept in the Numantine Museumin Soria. Its state of conservation is also much better. Although the Berlanga crown has fragmented and deformed over time, we conserve about 90% of its structure, which has allowed it to be virtually reconstructed. Looking for its owner. The cup is fascinating, but it leaves one question even more so: Who was its owner? Who the hell decided almost 2,000 years ago to take a commemorative cup from a fortification located more than a thousand kilometers away to Soria? The researchers have a theory: The piece belonged to a Celtiberian soldier who served on the most remote frontier of the empire. “The quality of craftsmanship and the materials used in these glasses tell us that they were prestigious objects, most likely made to order to give or decorate the military elite who had served at the Wall, the farthest border of the empire,” comment Jesús García Sánchez, expert from the Institute of Archeology of Mérida. “Most researchers, and we too, agree that they are interpreted as a souvenir or memento of the Wall.” From Britain to the peninsula. If the theory of García and his companions is correct, the Berlanga cup would have made a fascinating journey: it would have been part of the luggage with which a soldier from Celtiberia (a region that included part of what is now the province of Soria, as well as areas of Rioja, Zaragoza, Guadalajara, Teruel and Cuenca) who had … Read more

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.