Sergio Parra

The European middle class is already falling behind compared to the middle classes of emerging markets, such as China or India, and this trend, along with others, will be accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic.

As a society we must be prepared to face all these changes that are already coming, and not conceptualize them as a series of catastrophes without a solution, but as a series of opportunities to make evolutionary breakthroughs using lateral thinking. That is the main thesis of this book. Mauro F. Guillén, 2030. Traveling towards the end of the world as we know it.

Opportunities

Forecasting the future, there is no doubt, is an enterprise doomed to failure. But we can take into account some trends to guide us. And that is what this book aspires to be: a compass.

2030: Traveling to the end of the world as we know it (No collection)

RRP on Amazon €18.95

Marked by economic, sociological and technological data, this compass, then, allows us two things: face the next decade with a little less fear and surprise for what is to come. And two: do it with a more resilient and constructive spirit.

For this reason, the book has also been a source of inspiration in Xataka Ciencia in order to produce entries such as The number of patents does not stop growing, but it does so especially in China either Leapfrogging: when a society makes a technological leap by skipping stages.

In Xataka Science

Leapfrogging: when a society makes a technological leap by skipping stages

There was a time when the world was clearly divided between prosperous economies and backward economies. Many children were born, there were more workers than retirees and the aspirations of people who wanted to be part of the middle class consisted of having a car and a house. It was enough for companies to operate in Europe and the United States. It was paid with cash. And we expected the rules that governed our lives to be stable and predictable. But the world, pandemic through, has changed, and those rules are no longer valid.

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Books that inspire us: '2030. Traveling towards the end of the world as we know it', by Mauro F. Guillén

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Sergio Parra

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Our conception of romantic love could not be more trite, nor could it be more overflowing with pleonasms and tautologies, and endless inaccuracies, hunches and intuitions that contradict six decades of scientific literature.

However, there are intuitions or simple physical manifestations that have been corroborated. Like the neurophysiological changes that take place in a brain in love.

Neuroimaging

Stephanie Cacioppo, a psychologist at the University of Chicago who has studied the neuroscience of romantic love for the last decade, explains that the process involves several complex changes, particularly in the brain's reward system.

More specifically, in a review from 2012 From the scientific literature on love, Lisa Diamond and Janna Dickenson, psychologists at the University of Utah, found that romantic love is most consistently associated with activity in two brain regions: the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and the caudate nucleus.

These areas play an essential role in our reward pathway and regulate the neurotransmitter dopamine. In other words, during the early stages of love we miss your loved one because he or she makes you feel so good.

In Xataka Science

Why can't you buy my love for money?

In fact, simply thinking about your partner not only makes you feel good, but also can buffer pain, stress and other negative feelings. A study, for example, has shown that women in love do better on cognitive tasks after being subliminally told their lover's name.

These neural patterns of romantic love appear to be universal across genders, cultures, and sexual orientations. Romantic and platonic love, for example, may be associated with unique neural signatures. And studies show that the neural processes in charge of sexual attraction and desire can occur alongside and sometimes overlap with those that regulate romantic love, but they are largely different from them.

Be that as it may, it seems that finding someone special in our lives is a safe and stable source of happiness, although we are not very good at choosing a partner, on many occasions. Maybe we need help. Big Data + machine learning algorithms in order to find your perfect match. The one that suits you. And, furthermore, the offer will not be as limited as now (basically the people who live in your neighborhood or just beyond), but total (humanity). You can learn more about it in the following video:

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Thinking about your partner can dull pain, stress and other negative feelings.

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In China they have hardly used credit cards: they have gone from cash to mobile phone payment via QR codes.

Perhaps this is one of the most recent cases of leapfrogging, which describes when a society progresses technologically but not linearly, but abruptly, skipping natural stages. In Africa there is another surprising case with ebooks.

African ebooks

Although it may sound counterintuitive, rapid progress does not take place in the most developed regions, but in the least developed ones. This happens because in more developed countries and regions, citizens are tied to a certain way of thinking or doing things, so it is more difficult for them to let go of the past.

In Xataka

This is how China is making credit cards obsolete

But as explained Michael Hannan in This studio Regarding structural inertia, in less developed countries and regions, people adapt better to new radical changes, which offers a better observation point on the future.

A surprising and paradigmatic case, it's the ebook. In the most modern societies, its implementation is slow because users still find incentives for physical books. But what happens in a place where there are hardly any physical books? The same as in a China without credit cards.

For this reason, Africa could become, according to Mauro F. Guillen in his book 2030, the world's first ebook reader, in the same way that it is already at the forefront of mobile payments. Snappflify, for example, is a South African company that has become the largest educational content platform on the continent and already serves almost 200,000 students.

In Xataka Science

Companies that do not adapt to technological changes end up disappearing (if they do not receive protection)

For its part, worldreader, a San Francisco NGO, offers free access to a library of ebooks to schools in any developing country.

In rural areas, without coverage, it offers an integrated solution that includes solar panels, USB hubs, LED lights, e-book readers and access to the digital library.

Thanks to the magic of Leapfrogging, then, contentants like the African could receive aan unprecedented cultural and intellectual shock, suddenly, and in a few years; the equivalent of the shocks of thousands of years that the West received with the 38 most disruptive books for culture and science:

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Leapfrogging: when a society makes a technological leap by skipping stages

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Sergio Parra

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One of the first authors to imagine a kind of robot, this time made of meat, was a woman: Mary Shelley. His Frankenstein Monster (1823) addressed the fear of a Faustian pact with Promethean echoes. Eighty years later, another woman conceived another mechanical robot but made of wax at a time when plastic or steel did not yet exist: Handcuffs are made to order, of Alice W. Fuller (1895).

The first robot considered as such, and in the real world, would arrive a little later: in 1939. Its name was ELECTRO.

ELEKTRO, the first android

ELECTRO, this is the nickname of the first robot in history and was conceived by Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Elektro was two meters tall, weighed 120 kg, could walk by voice command and say 700 words (thanks to a 78 rpm phonograph). In addition, he smoked cigarettes, blew up balloons, and moved his head and arms.

Joseph Barnett, an engineer at Westinghouse Electric Corporation, used cutting-edge technology to create this first humanoid

Its body consisted of a steel gear and cam skeleton, and its photoelectric "eyes" could distinguish red and green light. Its brain consists of 48 electrical relays that function like a telephone switchboard.

Elektro was on display at the New York World's Fair in 1939 and returned the following year with its companion sparki, a robot dog that could bark and sit.

Elektro participated in films such as: Sex Kittens Go to College from the year 1960, and appeared in the newspaper comic strip The Amazing Spider-Man. In 1992, the dance band Meat Beat Manifesto produced the song "Original Control (Version 2)" which included fragments of Elektro's monologues, quoting lines such as "I am Elektro" and "My brain is larger than yours."

An Elektro robot was seen in the November 24, 2019 episode of Mr.Robot , located in a Queens Museum storage room that was near the site of the Original 1939 and 1964 World's Fair.

It is currently owned by Mansfield Memorial Museum. In 2013, Elektro was displayed at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn.

Someday, perhaps, we will be surrounded by robots made of atoms, or maybe bits (given our tendency to dematerialize the world). Be that as it may, perhaps we will disappear, engulfed by a new way of life or a viral conception of exponential reproduction. That's enough for another science fiction story, like the one I'm telling you here:

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This was the first robot in history and could say up to 700 words out loud and smoked cigarettes

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In 2016, the number of patents filed in the United States was three times higher than those registered in 1995. In other words, it is good news for Americans.

However, the number of new patents (mechanical devices, composite materials, new medicines, etc.), in that same period of time, the figure for India was 7 times higher. And China's figure was 72 times higher..

More startups

For decades, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has been the world's most important agency dedicated to protecting innovation, but this could change in a few years, as it predicts Mauro F. Guillén in his book 2030: Traveling towards the end of the world as we know it:

The clash also takes place between companies. Those that come from emerging markets are getting larger every day, while European and American companies are reducing in size, with some notable exceptions, such as technology companies. But even within the technology sector, Chinese and Indian companies are growing, not only because of the size of the population they serve, but also because there are more connected people using their digital services.

Because in China and India there are already more users of broadband, social networks and mobile payments than in the United States. And this gap is not going to stop increasing..

Alibaba is a larger company than Amazon, Didi has just taken over Uber's operations in China and India boasts of employing more technicians and engineers in the information technology sector than the United States.

In Xataka Science

In 2023, China will have an Internet of Things satellite constellation with 80 satellites

The world is changing more and more rapidly. The middle class has stagnated, or even shrank, in Europe and the United States, but is growing wildly in China and India. Within a decade, the differences will begin to be abysmal. We will have to start learning languages, or even move to another country.

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The number of patents does not stop growing, but it does so especially in China

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Sergio Parra

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Regarding the percentages that are presented these days on the effectiveness of some vaccines in development to combat the Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, many scientists and bioethicists are denouncing the treatment of information carried out by the media, which, in addition to being biased, incomplete and poorly explained, is based only on press releases, and not on studies.

Others argue that people are hungry for optimistic news. However, if we mix unjustified optimism with credulity, then the result can create an emotional roller coaster (of highs of optimism followed by lows of pesismo because the promised results have not arrived) that pessimism will finally increase.

Stockdale Paradox

When the Minister Salvador Illa suggested that perhaps at Christmas we would receive the gift of the COVID vaccine, was probably trying to convey hope to the Spanish (hopefully that's what it was, and not a statement resulting from ignorance). However, given that the vaccine is not going to arrive on those dates, and may not even arrive next year, Offering such hopes that will soon be dashed can cause harmful side effects..

In Xataka Science

What should be taught in school, according to Richard Dawkins

It is what describe the Stockdale paradox: a concept popularized by the writer Jim Collins in his book Companies that stand out taking as a reference Admiral James Stockdale, the highest-ranking American prisoner of the Vietnam War. During his captivity, Stockdale found out what kind of prisoners died the most: Those who kept repeating: “calm down, we'll get out of here, take heart, we'll be home by Christmas.”

Then Christmas arrived and the forecast was not fulfilled. But then his forecast jumped to another date. And so on until the prisoner surrendered.

In Xataka Science

[Books that inspire us] 'Is this paranormal? Why we believe in the impossible' by Richard Wiseman

Maintaining skeptical thinking is not an easy task. In fact, in general, it is so unnatural and counterintuitive that it is reminiscent of the sisyphus myth: the one we neglect, we have to start over. But it is something that we must do with the news of this type that the press publishes, based on simple pharmaceutical notes. But it is not only the way to avoid Stockdale's paradox, but also to avoid self-deception.

Thanks to different surveys, today we know how ignorant the general population is in matters of science. Today, almost half of adults in the United States believe in astrology, in angels and demons, and that we are being observed by aliens arriving in UFOs who frequently abduct human beings.

This happens because our brain is not very efficient when it comes to analyzing information and tends to be biased, self-deceived, filling gaps of ignorance with myths and establishing causality where there is only correlation, as I already denounced. Francis Bacon in its Novum Organum:

All superstition is the same whether it is about astrology, dreams, omens, retributive judgment, or similar, in all deceived believers they observe events that come true, but refuse to see their flaws, even though they are much more common.

If one of the most important filters for determining whether something is true or false, the press, is not working properly, we are lost. Let's not allow it. Let's be skeptical, realistic, optirrealists, and if the media does not do it, let us look for the information in better sources, always remembering the words of Carl Sagan and a kind of eleventh commandment. A vaccine as necessary as that of Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2:

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Be wary of overly optimistic news because excess optimism causes pessimism, also with vaccines

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The fossil of Tyrannosaurus rex known as Stan is on display in a gallery at Christie's auction house in New York City. But not anymore. HE has auctioned.

On October 6, London-based auction house Christie's sold the T.rex for the record amount of 31.8 million dollars, the highest price ever paid at auction for a fossil.

Stan

More than three decades ago, in South Dakota, an amateur paleontologist named Stan Sacrison discovered a titan of ancient Earth: the fossil of a nearly complete Tyrannosaurus rex Nicknamed 'Stan' after its discoverer, the beast was excavated in 1992 and has long been housed at the private Black Hills Geological Research Institute in Hill City, South Dakota.

Is it a good idea to allow these kinds of auctions? Scientists believe no, that the fossil could be lost in this way, since the collector could refuse to show it again, limiting the possibility of repeating results such as measurements of its bones or carrying out new analyzes with more advanced tools and techniques.

Scientists have also expressed concern about the negative effects the sale could have on the study of dinosaurs by incentivizing people to find and sell well-preserved fossils rather than leaving them for paleontologists to study.

In Xataka Science

Missing link in ape fossil record found in India

Stan's skeleton is undoubtedly one of the best Tyrannosaurus rex specimens ever found.

Stan's journey to the auction block began in 2015, when Neal Larson, a 35 percent shareholder in the Black Hills Institute (and brother of the institute's president, paleontologist Pete Larson), sued the company to liquidate its assets. . A judge ruled in 2018 that Stan had to be auctioned to pay Neal Larson for his participation in the institute.

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This fossil of a Tyrannosaurus rex has been sold for more than 30 million dollars: should fossils have a price?

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Yes in The 36 best science books to change the way you see the world we focused on basically Anglo-Saxon authors, Here we are going to focus on some of the best Spanish science communicators.

That doesn't make them better or worse, and it may not make them different in many cases, but perhaps there is something in the writing style, the idiosyncrasy, the culture... that is worth taking into consideration. In any case, by reading them you will also be supporting the increasingly robust health of Spanish dissemination.

Charles Darwin's Nose, by José Ramón Alonso

We are probably facing the most prolific Spanish author of all I know. Choosing one of his books is impossible, because they are all excellent, and he also talks about very, very different things, and with different approaches.

I choose this book because it is the first one I read by him, the one that made me discover him as an author, and it is also ideal to start because it is a kind of compilation of articles on very diverse topics... all of them capable of making you dilate your eyes in amazement.

Charles Darwin's nose: and other stories from Neuroscience (Essay and Dissemination)

Today on Amazon for €162.37

Nuclear energy will save the world, by Alfredo García

Alfredo is the Tony Stark of nuclear energy, the Tony Manero of radioactivity, the Tony Montana of Greenpeace... well, his name is not Tony, but Alfredo, and he is the already mythical @NuclearOperator on Twitter, and a nuclear operator in real life, specifically at the Ascó Nuclear Power Plant, in Tarragona.

A necessary book. A book that we must protect. Because when it comes to nuclear energy, as in many other issues, information must prevail over indoctrination, fear and Manichean messages, those that fit comfortably on a claim sheet. Because if we want a more ecological world we need a more nuclear world. By the way… Did you know that eating a banana produces a higher radioactive dose than living for a year next to a nuclear power plant?

Nuclear Energy Will Save the World: Debunking Myths About Nuclear Energy (Non-Fiction)

Today on Amazon for €17.57

The left Feng-Shui, by Mauricio-José Schwarz

The scientific method is the most refined procedure to reach levels of empirical knowledge that are difficult to achieve by any other intellectual means.

Many people, however, prefer to be led by hunch, by the fallacy of authority, by amimefunctionism. A weak thought that has taken root, above all, in humanities universities as a result of the May 68 (The Social Text affair highlights the extent of intellectual degeneration we have reached, where what is confusing and cryptic, false, is rewarded over what is expressed clearly and supported by proof and evidence).

The feng-shui left: When science and reason stopped being progressive (Ariel)

Today on Amazon for €18.90

The Ignored Kingdom, by David González Jara

Humans feed on more than 5,000 different species, and 18,000 of them have medicinal purposes. The 21% of all of them, however, is in danger of extinction, mainly due to climate change, habitat loss, diseases and invasive species. Plants are fascinating, yes, and David G. Jara He manages to infect us with that fascination through his prose.

The Ignored Kingdom: A Surprising Insight into the Wonderful World of Plants

Today on Amazon for €5.69

May mathematics be with you!, by Cara Grima

Mathematics surrounds us, penetrates us and holds the galaxy together. They are in almost everything you do, from tying your shoes to that selfie in which you looked so good, to auctions, football, vaccines, Game of Thrones or Google. And no one better than the enthusiastic, funny and sparkling Clara Grima to get into them.

May mathematics be with you! (Ariel)

Today on Amazon for €17.95

Eat without fear, by JM Mulet

We live in times of chemophobia. While we seek the latest technology, in the field of food we reject it, and prefer food "made by grandma", "natural", "organic", "biological". However, natural is not necessarily healthier than chemical. In fact, the difference between natural and chemical is diffuse.

The difference between natural and artificial is diffuse because nature does not feed us. Most societies that live "in nature" have nutritional deficiencies. Most of the things we eat only exist thanks to human intervention. All the species that feed us have been selected, bred and domesticated.

Eat without fear: Myths, fallacies and lies about food in the 21st century (Dissemination)

Today on Amazon for €7.55

A scientist in the supermarket, by José Manuel López Nicolás

This impressive book is a mundane tour of everything that surrounds us, bringing out with a scientific prism what is worth highlighting, corroborating or questioning. More than a book, furthermore, we are faced with a dialogue in which the author, like a cicerone, shows us all the wonders that surround us on a daily basis. And that everything is, in a way, connected to everything. For example, in one chapter he reaches pull the beet thread, revealing the nature of dyes, or even what all this has to do with the International Space Station.

The dialogue, furthermore, is not with the reader, that too, but with his daughter Ruth, his grandmother and other characters that surround the author and who add, even more, an endearing aspect to the text.

A scientist in the supermarket: A journey through the science of small things (Non-Fiction)

Today on Amazon for €17.00

The naked eye, by Antonio Martínez Ron

The first thing you think of when reading this book is “organic.” How well everything is cohesive. It is almost like reading a novel, rich and full of characters, but completely real... a journey that goes from the very origin of the looks to the way in which we try to observe the confines of the universe. Everything we see, everything we can't see, everything we can see. In short, an exquisite book.

The Naked Eye: If you don't see it, how do you know it's there? The fascinating journey of science beyond the apparent (Drakontos)

Today on Amazon for €20.80

Your vitamins are gone!, by Deborah García Bello

Anti-vaxxers tend to be very informed people. There are doctors who even prescribe homeopathy. Pseudoscience courses are taught in universities. And even the most cultured and informed person forms completely wrong ideas about the natural world. And precisely for this reason, books like this one, which explain why there is no difference between white and brown sugar, that electromagnetic waves from cell phones are harmless or that there is no such thing as a healthy glass of wine, resorting to reliable sources such as studies. scientists, should always be on the best-seller podium of any bookstore.

Your vitamins are going away!: Myths and secrets that only science can solve (Disclosure)

Today on Amazon for €17.05

You can discover these and other books about Spanish authors in the next video:

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The best science books written by Spanish authors that you should not miss

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The elaborate bag was made in Mosul, Iraq, around 1300 AD Made of brass, inlaid with gold and silver, it has been identified as one of the earliest surviving examples of a women's handbag.

There is older evidence of wallets, like parts of a 4,200-year-old portfolio found in Germany. But this bag, however, remains relatively well preserved and intact.

Fabric and leather degrade quickly

The bag is a brass vessel inlaid with intricate scenes of court life in gold and silver, and probably belonged to a high-ranking member of the Court.

It was part of the 'Court and Craft: A Masterpiece from Northern Iraq' exhibition held at the Courtauld Gallery in London which focuses on art and craft made in the area around Mosul during the government of the Ilkhanids: Mongol forces under the leadership of Hulagu Khan who conquered much of the Middle East in the mid-13th century.

Wallets made from other materials such as cloth and leather are rare in the archaeological record, not because they were not popular, but because leather and cloth tend to degrade much more quickly than metal, stone or other materials. Preserving wallets after digging can also be tricky.

It is easier to find coins like this one Sutton Hoo, a place located in Suffolk, United Kingdom where remains of a 7th century funerary ship as well as various utensils were found in 1939.

Sutton Hoo has been of vital importance to historians of the Middle Ages as it provided information about that period in England; period that until the discovery was very little documented:

In Europe, in ancient times, the goldsmith's work, the embroidery, the quality of the bag or purse signaled the “social status” of the person who was the carrier.

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This brass purse has been identified as one of the earliest surviving examples of a women's purse.

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Tool use is considered an indicator of cognitive sophistication and has been observed primarily in primates and some bird species. We knew that some ant species can use tools, particularly to collect liquid food; however, These new data allow us to be surprised by the remarkable use of tools displayed by black fire ants..

The black fire ants, Solenopsis richteri, are native to South America, but are now an invasive species in the southern United States after being introduced.

To survive

These findings suggest that ants and other social insects may have considerable cognitive abilities for unique foraging strategies. In particular, andThis species of ants uses sand to extract liquid food from containers when they are at risk of drowning..

In Xataka Science

Human beings were not the first farmer in history

In it laboratory experiment, when provided with small containers of sugar water, black fire ants were able to float and feed on the surface, but when the researchers reduced the surface tension, the ants began depositing grains of sand inside the container as they came out of it. .

As explained Aiming Zhou, associate professor at Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China, and lead author of the research:

In Xataka Science

There is a species of ant that emits as much nitrous oxide as a water purifier.

We discovered that the ants used sand to build a structure that could extract sugar water from the container and then collect it. This exceptional tool-making ability not only reduced the ants' risk of drowning, but also provided a larger space for them to collect sugar water.

These structures were never observed when ants were feeding in containers of pure sugar water, indicating an adaptable approach to the use of this new tool.

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To avoid drowning, this species of ants is capable of using tools

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