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The year 2021 is expected to be the shortest in decades. The last time an average day was less than 86,400 seconds in a full year was in 1937.

According to the calculations, an average day in 2021 will be 0.05 milliseconds shorter than 86,400 seconds. Throughout the year, atomic clocks will have accumulated a lag of about 19 milliseconds.

Accelerated rotation

The length of an average solar day can vary in milliseconds (1 millisecond equals 0.001 seconds). But Earth's rotation speed varies constantly due to the complex motion of its molten core, oceans and atmosphere, as well as other effects. Official measurements of day length are made by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS).

To determine the actual length of a day, IERS scientists determine the exact speed of Earth's rotation by measuring the precise times a fixed star passes a given location in the sky each day. This measure is expressed as Universal time (UT1), a type of solar time.

Before 2020 began, for example, The shortest day since 1973 was July 5, 2005, when the Earth's rotation took 1.0516 milliseconds less than 86,400 seconds.

In Xataka Science

Is the Earth spinning more and more slowly? Yes, and before the years had 400 days

However, in mid-2020, lEarth broke that record no less than 28 times. The shortest day of all came on July 19, when Earth completed its rotation in 1.4602 milliseconds short of 86,400 seconds. 2021, if the calculations are confirmed, will break this record.

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The year 2021 will be the shortest in decades: the Earth has been rotating more rapidly lately

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Sergio Parra

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Flaunt luxury items It has been a recurring theme in most cultures around the world., from Egyptian pharaohs to modern-day Lamborghini owners.

However, although those who exhibit conspicuous consumption have more social and even sexual success because greater economic power is indirectly derived from it, This can also give more pleasure if the deceased suffers an accident..

Expensive car VS cheap car

Jill Sundie, consumer psychologist, carried out a very curious study in which he asked a group of students to express their reaction to one of the two supposed cars of another student.

The car could be a $65,000 Mercedes or a $16,000 Ford Focus.

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The more expensive your car is, the more likely you are to be rude to others.

Next, the students had to see a photo of the supposed car, along with a verbal description of how it had broken down next to a shopping center, leaving the owner and some of his friends stranded.

What happened? As explained Richard H. Smith in his book Schadenfreude:

Students who had read the article that mentioned a Mercedes were much more likely to admit that they were glad to hear about the mechanical breakdown than those who had read the article that mentioned the Ford, especially if they had also reported feeling envious. .

In Xataka Science

These were the first people to die on the first means of transportation in history

That is to say, what most conditioned the fact that they felt pleasure was the hostility associated with your envy. Perhaps for this reason, like the undersigned, he tries to psychologically boycott in some way the men who drove dick cars and the women who wore too much makeup, as I explain in the following video:

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We laugh more at the misfortune of the driver of an expensive car than at a more modest car

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Sergio Parra

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Although most of us are uncomfortable admitting it, we often feel Schadenfreude, that is, pleasure in the misfortunes of others, because we can directly or indirectly benefit from that misfortune.

In Schadenfreude. The joy of other people's evil, Richard H. Smith delves into the mechanisms that underlie this pleasure for the displeasure of others, as well as all the ramifications that emerge from that feeling. A book that, although perhaps monothematic, is punctuated with curious stories and everyday examples (or from series and movies, especially The Simpsons).

They/Us

The book is one of the best I have read in 2020, I have to admit. And it is also very easy to read and opens the doors to many reflections, such as the current polarization and political partisanship, that is, the exacerbation of tribalism, of Them VS Us.

As an example, a button: the entries that have been inspired by fragments of the book:

• The simple presence of a vegetarian can inhibit an omnivore
• Mr. Clean and Mr. Dirty: how our self-esteem depends on the type of person we compete with

Schadenfreude is a German word that designates the feeling of joy or satisfaction generated by the suffering, unhappiness or humiliation of another. The term in Spanish translates as gloat either gloating, defined by the RAE as Taking malicious pleasure in a mishap, trouble, etc., that happens to another person.

Schadenfreude: The joy of another's evil: and the dark side of human nature (The pocket book – Social sciences)

RRP on Amazon €14.25

"Schadenfreude: The joy of another's evil" sheds light on one of the most widespread and least recognized emotions in our society, namely, the secret (or expressed) satisfaction or joy that we experience when seeing someone powerful fall, someone sink. person, company or institution towards whom we have animosity, or assisting the misfortune of someone whom we judge unfairly well treated by fortune. Richard H. Smith, professor of Psychology at the University of Kentucky and one of the leading specialists in "bad" or "dark" emotions, such as envy, mixes popular culture (such as well-known television series), daily life, history, etc. , with a rigorous scientific approach, to make us see, however disturbing it may sometimes be, that there is no "bad" and "good" in an absolute sense, but rather that at the level of our psyche everything is related and has a powerful reason for being. .

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Books that inspire us: 'Schadenfreude. Happiness for Other People's Evil' by Richard H. Smith

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Thanks to a new design of thermoelectric device Embedded in the bottle cap, it has a USB charging port. By connecting the charging cable, the battery charging icon on the mobile screen is activated.

The water bottle can provide 20 to 30 minutes of electricity after we pour 300 to 500 milliliters of boiling water. Enough to charge a smartphone and other small appliances.

thermoelectric device

The thermoelectric devices They are made of materials that can convert a temperature difference into electricity.

Researchers at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, a Chinese space rocket manufacturer, has developed a type of insulated water bottle equipped with a thermoelectric chip that converts the heat of water into electricity to charge devices.

In Xataka Science

This new solid-state battery developed by MIT would make a cell phone last days without recharging

Emphasizing the safety of the invention, its developers guarantee that it produces low voltage and has no risk of short circuit.

The researchers are now looking to establish cooperation with companies to commercialize the concept. The product is likely to be priced at 150 yuan, about 20 euros.

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With this hot water bottle developed in China you could one day charge a smartphone

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Using Raman spectroscopy, London chemist Robin Clark and his collaborators performed an analysis of the pigments used for the miniatures that illustrate various examples of the Gutenberg Bible.

Raman spectroscopy

He Raman effect It is due to the incidence of a photon hitting a molecule and the consequent interaction with the electron cloud of its bonds, exciting the molecule to a virtual state.

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In this video you can see a Gutenberg printing press in operation

Thanks to this we know what the colors of the Bible are made of:

• Reds: probably cinnabar (mercury sulfide) or hematite (iron oxide).
• Blues: azurite, lapis lazuli or indigo.
• Oranges: minio or realgar.
• Greens: malachite (basic copper carbonate) or verdigris (basic copper acetate).
• Yellow: basic lead carbonate or a lead stannate.
• Ochres: goethite (a basic iron oxide).
• Black: charcoal.
• Whites: calcite.

As it explains Santiago Alvarez in Of women, men and molecules: "A splendid palette that wonderfully resists the passing of the centuries."

The Gutenberg Bible is an edition of the Vulgate, printed by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany, in the 15th century.

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All the colors of the Gutenberg Bible

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Sergio Parra

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We already hosted many doubts about electronic cigarettes, to which we now add the conclusions of a new study: which can cause inflammation in the intestine.

In the study Has been published this January 5, 2021 in the magazine iScience. This is the first study to demonstrate how chronic exposure to e-cigarettes increases the gut's susceptibility to bacterial infections.

Intestinal barrier alteration

The results of the study suggest that the chemical components of electronic cigarettes, specifically propylene glycol and vegetable glycerol, they disrupt the intestinal barrier and trigger inflammation in the body, which can lead to a variety of health problems.

In Xataka Science

We must start pursuing electronic cigarettes because their safety is not clear

Everything we eat or drink, our lifestyle choices in other words, has the ability to affect our gut microbes, gut barrier, and overall health. We now know that what we smoke, like e-cigarettes, also negatively impacts it.

For the study, the team used three-dimensional models of human intestinal tracts generated from patient cells and simulated what happens when vapors from e-cigarettes enter the intestinal lining. The researchers validated the findings using mouse models.

To produce the three-dimensional intestinal organoids, the researchers collected stem cells from patients' biopsies during colonoscopies and They grew them in vitro. The stem cells differentiated into four different types of cells that make up the intestinal lining. Finally, the team exposed the organoids to the liquid vapor of the e-cigarette, mimicking the frequency of a chronic vaper.

'Given the importance of the intestinal barrier in maintaining the body's immune homeostasis, the findings provide valuable information about the Possible long-term harmful effects of chronic use of electronic cigarettes on our health.

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Electronic cigarettes cause inflammation in the intestine

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We generally think that monozygotic twins are natural clones, which are identical twins. At the beginning of development, the embryo divides, separates and produces two groups of cells whose genes are identical, each of which will grow into a different but equal baby.

The results of a new study published in Nature indicate that cell allocation during development shapes genomic differences between monozygotic twins. But How relevant is this to determining that twins are not identical?

Monozygotic twins

The monozygotes are so similar that, even in 2009, in Germany, the arrest warrant for two of them was lifted when it could not be proven who had been the author of a jewelry theft in Berlin given their extraordinary resemblance (DNA included). But perhaps a small variation in the environment can produce very large effects on the phenotype (or the opposite), like the butterfly that flaps its wings at one end of the world and, through the art of birlibirloque, ends up generating hurricanes at the other end.

In Xataka Science

Do twin brothers live longer?

But before the birth of twins, we can take into account other important aspects that could undermine the common assumption that The genome sequences of monozygotic twins are almost identical. In fact, there is a paucity of studies characterizing the genomic differences between these twins.

Thus, the average number of differences between the genomes of monozygotic twins is unknown. Furthermore, the types of mutations that lead to these differences and their timing are unknown. That is what the cited study has tried to elucidate..

To estimate the number and timing of mutations that differ between monozygotic twins, Postzygotic mutations present in the somatic tissue of one of the twins were looked for., but not the other, and were timed by comparing whole genome sequencing (WGS) data from monozygotic twins, their offspring, spouses, and parents.

In Xataka Science

How do you know if a personality trait is heritable?

It was then shown that monozygotic twins differ on average in** 5.2 early developmental mutations** and that approximately 15% of monozygotic twins have a substantial number of these early developmental mutations specific to one of them.

CpG > TpG mutations increased in frequency with embryonic development, coinciding with an increase in DNA methylation. Thus, the results indicate that cell allocation during development shapes genomic differences between monozygotic twins.

With everything, Some clarifications must be made regarding these findings..

In Xataka Science

Do twins have the same fingerprints?

Precisions about these results

This study is one of hundreds of articles from deCODE (DEcentralized Citizen Owned Data Ecosystem), which have repeatedly demonstrated how much deeper we can still delve into human biology when you have the genomic sequence of an entire country.

The authors studied a subset of de novo mutations (a de novo mutation is a mutation that appears for the first time in a family; neither parents nor grandparents have this genetic alteration) that arise after the formation of the zygote (that is, after fusion of sperm and egg).

Most de novo mutations are pre-zygotic and are present in the sperm or egg. The authors report 5.2 post-zygotic mutations in the 15% of the twins. This is ~0.1% of the total de novo mutation rate, which is 74 per individual.

We must keep in mind that a human being has six billion base pairs (considering the diploid genome). Consequently, the post-zygotic mutation rate is 5.2 / 6e09 \u003d 8.6e-10, which amounts to a simple drop in the ocean of the genome.

Pre-zygotic mutations are less random as they are associated with the sex and age of the parents. But, post-zygotic mutations are likely to occur by chance.

Therefore, most of the large effect associations reported for de novo mutations are likely due to prezygotic mutations. Nature study shows nothing about pathogenicity or phenotypic effects of post-zygotic mutations.

Given this background, claiming that the findings of this study call into question the validity of twin-based heritability studies is unwarranted. Identical twins remain essentially identical in their genomic sequence.

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Are the genomes of identical twins really identical?

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Gustavo Bueno's materialist philosophy, among others, is based on two master pillars. One of which is that, in order to avoid stumbling into dogmatism or relativism, Every proposal must be based on the firm rock of rigorous sciences..

He reached similar conclusions, three centuries ago, Baruch Spinoza (Amsterdam, November 24, 1632 – The Hague, February 21, 1677), probably the first relevant philosopher who wanted to completely separate philosophy from religion, encouraging the former to embrace science with more interest.

The most hated philosopher

Considered one of the three great rationalists of 17th century philosophy, along with the French Rene Descartes and the german Gottfried Leibniz, Spinoza was born in the freest city of the time: Amsterdam.

Only in a place as ideologically disruptive as Amsterdam, where the most heterodox thinkers came to live, could Spinoza become the first philosopher of modernity, the first to systematically propose that religion and politics were to be separated, and one of the first promoters of democracy (although he would later think that it was not the only acceptable form of government).

He was also the precursor of the movement to separate faith and superstitions in the Bible, conceiving it as a historical document, and proposed that religion will no longer trample the kingdom of science.

Precisely for this reason, Spinoza would also be one of the most hated philosophers of his time.

A unique life

Spinoza would be totally influenced by the ideas of Descartes, as well as his mentor, Franciscus van den Enden, who was also a radical supporter of Cartesian precepts. Spinoza entered van den Enden's heterodox academy to study in the mid-1650s.

Spinoza would also feel attracted to one of the many sects born in that new era of nonconformity, specifically the branch of the Mennonites in the Netherlands: a sect known as the Collegiants, who were pacifists and believed in withdrawing from society; as explained Russell Shorto in his book Amsterdam:

If we were to collect the names of some of these sects, anyone would think we were reading a list of bands summoned to play at a folk music festival: there were the Tremblers, the Enthusiasts, the Seekers and the Equalizers.

Little by little, Spinoza would forget about his father's business and would concentrate only on learning philosophy and guide your interests to cultivate reason. And he would attack the religion with such fervor that his Jewish community would condemn him to excommunication: not in vain, he attacked its practices and laws with as much ruthlessness as a stand-up comedian could do today.

Spinoza believed in God, but for practical purposes he was an atheist, because his god was nothing like the god of the rest. When a rabbi would, in fact, ask Albert Einstein If he believed in God, he replied: "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the harmony of existence governed by laws, I do not believe in a god who deals with fate and human actions."

Being excommunicated, then, for Spinoza was a relief. He said goodbye not only to the community but to his own family. In the 17th century, everyone necessarily belonged to some formal religion. The church or the synagogue were not only spaces where one attended religious ceremonies, but they constituted the very community of people and represented a basic element of identity and legitimacy in social material. However, Spinoza would no longer convert to Christianity or any other faith.

Harassed for his criticism of religious orthodoxy, his books were included in the Index librorum prohibitorum of the Catholic Church (1679). His work circulated clandestinely until it was claimed by great German philosophers of the early 19th century: "Schleiermacher [...] Hegel, Schelling all proclaim with one voice that Spinoza is the father of modern thought."

But Spinoza was, in fact, only one more element of the great changes that occurred at that time. The true transforming engine was the ecosystem where Spinoza would grow up. Specifically, Amsterdam. If you want to know why this place was so special, you can do so in the following video:

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Spinoza: the hated philosopher who wanted to separate religion from science

was originally published in

Xataka Science

by
Sergio Parra

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