<![CDATA[EL PAÍS]]>https://english.elpais.comFri, 08 May 2026 14:49:14 +0000en1hourly1<![CDATA[Alan Faena, the Argentine real estate developer who wants to turn around New York’s West Chelsea district]]>https://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2026-03-14/alan-faena-the-argentine-real-estate-developer-who-wants-to-turn-around-new-yorks-west-chelsea-district.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2026-03-14/alan-faena-the-argentine-real-estate-developer-who-wants-to-turn-around-new-yorks-west-chelsea-district.htmlSat, 14 Mar 2026 04:00:00 +0000Alan Faena wants New York to return to being the city that never sleeps. Apparently, post-pandemic, most New Yorkers now have dinner and go to bed early. Faena wants to reverse that trend with a maximalist and dramatic hotel in West Chelsea, where a speakeasy and a variety theater will remind the locals of the real yet abandoned nature of the city they live in.

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]]>Winnie Au<![CDATA[Why the price of coffee has skyrocketed: from Brazilian plantations to specialty coffee houses]]>https://english.elpais.com/economy-and-business/2025-12-28/why-the-price-of-coffee-has-skyrocketed-from-brazilian-plantations-to-specialty-coffee-houses.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/economy-and-business/2025-12-28/why-the-price-of-coffee-has-skyrocketed-from-brazilian-plantations-to-specialty-coffee-houses.htmlSun, 28 Dec 2025 04:00:00 +0000You think you’ve made the deal of a lifetime, and it turns out it could have been even better. And at a certain age, those strong emotions can be dangerous, as Mauri Oliveira, a 66-year-old Brazilian coffee producer, can attest to. Owner of the Campestre estate, he speaks with delight about the ritual he shares with other landowners every full moon night. They have dinner at one of the estates before embarking on a horseback ride by the light of the moon along the trails. Since the price of coffee began to skyrocket to unimaginable levels even for the most veteran growers, its causes and effects have been dominating conversations. The swings are so dramatic that one of his riding companions had to be hospitalized because of the shock to his heart. It turns out he sold his entire harvest one day for a hefty profit, only to discover 24 hours later that if he had waited, he could have multiplied his earnings.

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]]>Leonardo Carrato<![CDATA[What are men searching for (and running from) when they go on a retreat? ]]>https://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2025-12-24/what-are-men-searching-for-and-running-from-when-they-go-on-a-retreat.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2025-12-24/what-are-men-searching-for-and-running-from-when-they-go-on-a-retreat.htmlWed, 24 Dec 2025 11:48:02 +0000What are men escaping (for a week or, at most, for 10 days) when they go on a retreat in places where no one knows them? Places where no one is aware if they are CEOs, freelancers or rich heirs; if they’re family men, uncompromising bachelors or divorcees, hetero, gay or bisexual? It would appear, according to several folks who are knowledgeable on the subject, that they are running from their environment, from the roles they have been assigned, and from the people who remind them of all of the above. “They are looking for a safe place where there are no expectations of them, where they don’t have to maintain a predetermined attitude and where they can let their guard down,” says Elisa Errea, founder of The Human Studio and The Wine Studio, who organizes retreats and helps many men to draw their “stress maps,” which serve as X-rays of their weaknesses.

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]]>Alberto Aragón<![CDATA[The ChatGPT effect: We’ve all started talking like robots]]>https://english.elpais.com/technology/2025-11-01/the-chatgpt-effect-weve-all-started-talking-like-robots.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/technology/2025-11-01/the-chatgpt-effect-weve-all-started-talking-like-robots.htmlSat, 01 Nov 2025 04:40:00 +0000We’re experiencing a ChatGPTification of everything. While we await the life-changing leap promised by companies with multi-million-dollar marketing budgets, the major language models, of which ChatGPT is the most widely implemented, force us to speak with strange words, combining adjectives we would never have used three years ago. We entrust our private life to an entity that could “testify” against us in court in the future (a circumstance that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman himself has warned about), and we revert to magical thinking, believing that for a few dollars a month we have the oracle on our computer.

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]]>Mikel Jaso<![CDATA[Longevity: The great new status symbol]]>https://english.elpais.com/health/2025-09-26/longevity-the-great-new-status-symbol.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/health/2025-09-26/longevity-the-great-new-status-symbol.htmlFri, 26 Sep 2025 14:27:49 +0000Let’s get this out of the way: being old is certainly not a status symbol. We live in a society where the value of everything plummets after the age of 50, but where, paradoxically, the struggle to extend the limits of life by trying to reverse biological aging has become the latest religion. It’s called longevity.

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]]>Carlos Rodríguez Casado<![CDATA[Adults who collect children’s toys: The Labubu phenomenon exposed]]>https://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2025-08-29/adults-who-collect-childrens-toys-the-labubu-phenomenon-exposed.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2025-08-29/adults-who-collect-childrens-toys-the-labubu-phenomenon-exposed.htmlFri, 29 Aug 2025 15:48:08 +0000The pace is dizzying. We hadn’t even fully gotten our heads around the Sonny Angels when we were swept away by the Labubu, hairy elves with nine teeth — having more or less is the definitive sign that it’s a fake, like the ones circulating on Amazon, reveals Cynthia Pavón, a 24-year-old collector living in Miami. She buys hers in a physical store because falling for a fake Labubu — lafufus, she calls them — is “a humiliation.” To ensure authenticity, many people order theirs directly from the Pop Mart website, the Chinese company that created them in 2015 and sells them starting at $14 (although some can resell for several hundred). But then they’ll have to wait for shipping, and live with the fear that by the time the package arrives, Labubus will have gone out of style and there will be another cute collectible to chase by land, sea, and air.

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]]>Chen Yusheng (VCG/Getty Images)<![CDATA[The steps we take, the hours we sleep, the books we read — why are we counting everything? ]]>https://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2025-08-17/the-steps-we-take-the-hours-we-sleep-the-books-we-read-why-are-we-counting-everything.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2025-08-17/the-steps-we-take-the-hours-we-sleep-the-books-we-read-why-are-we-counting-everything.htmlSun, 17 Aug 2025 04:15:05 +0000We count everything. Calories, steps, heart rate, minutes of REM sleep, books we’ve read, books we plan to read, series we’ve watched and series that are waiting to be watched, trips taken and those yet to take, close and not-so-close friends, movies... We gain peace and tranquility every time we put a number to an act. The more chaos reigns around us, the more addicted we become to numbers. Order, metrics and law are the mandates of technomoralism, its norms determined by a single god: technology.

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]]>Quintatinta<![CDATA[Eccentrics and visionaries: The 15 tech bros who rule the world ]]>https://english.elpais.com/eps/2025-07-12/eccentrics-and-visionaries-the-15-tech-bros-who-rule-the-world.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/eps/2025-07-12/eccentrics-and-visionaries-the-15-tech-bros-who-rule-the-world.htmlSat, 12 Jul 2025 04:00:00 +0000They are some of the richest men in the world, but above all, they are the most powerful and controversial. Their companies and products — from Meta and Amazon to TikTok and Nvidia — set the pace of a society fueled by technological innovation and glued to screens.

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]]>Luis Grañena<![CDATA[From Maluma to Bad Bunny: The ‘Latin lovers’ that have conquered the world ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-04-19/from-maluma-to-bad-bunny-the-latin-lovers-that-have-conquered-the-world.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-04-19/from-maluma-to-bad-bunny-the-latin-lovers-that-have-conquered-the-world.htmlSat, 19 Apr 2025 04:00:00 +0000“¡Pero qué chimba, chimba de vida! ¡Estoy viviendo la life que quería! ¡Aquí estoy viviendo chimba de vida!” Such was the triumphant refrain of Karol G upon rocking Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu stadium last summer on four consecutive nights, with an audience of around 60,000 at each gig. If Spanish listeners are familiar with the word chimba, Colombian Spanish for something very cool, it’s because of her—or perhaps her countryman Maluma, who is always singing about his parceros, national slang for close friends, and their chimbitas. “¡Qué chimba parce!” is a very Colombian phrase that works to describe anything relatively positive, from a cocktail to a film. It’s the equivalent of saying “me lo estoy gozando,” another very Latin American way of expressing supreme happiness that has wound up insinuating itself within the Castilian Spanish of Spain.

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]]>Chris Pizzello<![CDATA[No carbs, no smoking and hardly any alcohol: The party’s over for Gen Z ]]>https://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2025-03-08/no-carbs-no-smoking-and-hardly-any-alcohol-the-partys-over-for-gen-z.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2025-03-08/no-carbs-no-smoking-and-hardly-any-alcohol-the-partys-over-for-gen-z.htmlSat, 08 Mar 2025 04:00:00 +0000You’re to be forgiven for calling them Gen ZZZ. Overly concerned about their health and driven by a fear of aging (even if they’ve yet to turn 30), they don’t smoke, barely drink alcohol, avoid sugar and fast-digesting carbohydrates. They don’t go out much and rise at dawn to do 40 burpees and 80 lunges while their TikTok productivity gurus whisper to them, “Win the morning and you win the day.”

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]]>Irene Hagemann<![CDATA[TikTok, the company that changed internet culture]]>https://english.elpais.com/technology/2025-01-20/tiktok-the-company-that-changed-internet-culture.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/technology/2025-01-20/tiktok-the-company-that-changed-internet-culture.htmlMon, 20 Jan 2025 14:41:46 +0000Back in 2019, in the calm, pre-pandemic times, it was said that no one of voting age could understand TikTok. Even its creator, Zhang Yimin, then 36 years old — at 41 he would become the richest man in China — admitted that he didn’t know how to use it, telling South China Morning Post that he was “too old” for the app.

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]]>Craig Hudson<![CDATA[When it comes to cakes, cheese please!]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-12-28/when-it-comes-to-cakes-cheese-please.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-12-28/when-it-comes-to-cakes-cheese-please.htmlSat, 28 Dec 2024 04:38:13 +0000It’s 5pm on a Saturday. At No. 60 on Madrid’s Calle de Velázquez, a line snakes to the corner, doubles back and occasionally obstructs the crosswalk. Its integrants’ object of desire is Alex Cordobés’ cheesecake, and they’ve come from all over the world for a taste. We spoke with some of them, hailing from Greece and Qatar, Murcia and Miami — and even a few local Madrileños. Nearly all of them follow the same protocol, recording themselves in line and upon getting their hands on the cake, recording themselves again tasting it, offering a thumb’s up to the camera and in so doing, registering themselves as members of the same pastry community.

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]]>Erea Azurmendi<![CDATA[‘A devastating cocktail for the face’: Is Ozempic aging us prematurely? ]]>https://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2024-11-02/a-devastating-cocktail-for-the-face-is-ozempic-aging-us-prematurely.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2024-11-02/a-devastating-cocktail-for-the-face-is-ozempic-aging-us-prematurely.htmlSun, 03 Nov 2024 04:00:00 +0000The face is the window to the soul, they say. Also, that by the time people are in their 40s, they have the face that they deserve. But a better way of putting it might be, they have the one they can afford. The truth is, looks often have more to do with a person’s pocketbook than their spirit. In addition to being able to access high-cost aesthetic services, it can be hard to parse other pseudo-scientific claims regarding our facial musculature. For example, can running really make us look older?

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]]>Getty Images / Blanca López (collage) <![CDATA[‘Leave me alone,’ the wish that should be considered a right ]]>https://english.elpais.com/health/2024-08-31/leave-me-alone-the-wish-that-should-be-considered-a-right.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/health/2024-08-31/leave-me-alone-the-wish-that-should-be-considered-a-right.htmlSat, 31 Aug 2024 04:05:00 +0000Being alone for 10 minutes a day should be considered a fundamental human right. Or perhaps it should be funded by Social Security, in the interest of mental health and national harmony. Being more alone than ever, of course, isn’t advisable — scientific evidence linking unwanted loneliness with various chronic diseases is solid — but constantly being accompanied by other people’s chatter (real or digital) isn’t good, either. Freeing yourself from social expectations and distractions, while seeking some space and introspection, is a healthy practice. It allows you to be at peace and not give up on who you are, or who you aspire to be.

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]]>Pau Valls<![CDATA[A visit to Le Bristol, the hotel hosting the rich and famous during the Paris Olympic Games ]]>https://english.elpais.com/sports/olympic-games/2024-08-02/a-visit-to-le-bristol-the-hotel-hosting-the-rich-and-famous-during-the-paris-olympic-games.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/sports/olympic-games/2024-08-02/a-visit-to-le-bristol-the-hotel-hosting-the-rich-and-famous-during-the-paris-olympic-games.htmlFri, 02 Aug 2024 19:37:43 +0000A stately gentleman in an expensive trench coat is inclined to check out from his hotel. He is in a hurry, his glasses foggy. Perhaps, they are dirty as well. When he goes by reception to leave his keys — impossible to bring them anywhere, they are far too heavy — the concierge asks to see his glasses, please. The gentleman turns them over, a nearly automatic gesture. The employee cleans them slowly, with dedication, then looks at them, checks them over and gives them back. Everything in order. No one leaves Le Bristol Paris in anything but perfect condition. It’s like one’s family home — it may be luxurious and costly, but it is also a place where everyone takes care of you.

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]]>Léa Crespi<![CDATA[From Finasteride to Invisalign: The (extreme) aesthetic cocktail of what makes a man sexy today ]]>https://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2024-07-28/from-finasteride-to-invisalign-the-extreme-aesthetic-cocktail-of-what-makes-a-man-sexy-today.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2024-07-28/from-finasteride-to-invisalign-the-extreme-aesthetic-cocktail-of-what-makes-a-man-sexy-today.htmlSun, 28 Jul 2024 04:05:00 +0000Men’s medicine cabinets are increasingly resembling the pharmaceutical stockroom of the chronically ill. The male aesthetic norm — healthy and abundant hair, toned and voluminous muscles, well-defined jawline, straight and blindingly white teeth, smooth and glowing skin — requires fairly radical pharmacological and medical interventions to stimulate metabolism and cellular function. The perfect man is also medicated so as not to remain on the sofa, an understandable desire of a body after taking the necessary steps towards becoming aesthetically normative, optimized and productive, energetic, healthy and happy.

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]]>Getty Images / Pepa Ortiz (Collage) <![CDATA[Dennis Gross, celebrity dermatologist: ‘In the US we’ve gone too far with botox’]]>https://english.elpais.com/health/2024-07-19/dennis-gross-celebrity-dermatologist-in-the-us-weve-gone-too-far-with-botox.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/health/2024-07-19/dennis-gross-celebrity-dermatologist-in-the-us-weve-gone-too-far-with-botox.htmlFri, 19 Jul 2024 20:03:16 +0000Dr. Dennis Gross does not make categorical statements, nor does he have an answer for everything. He ponders each question for a long time. Then he examines the skin again in depth, in silence, and finally, when he speaks, he ends his sentences with an “it is possible,” or a “maybe,” or an uncertain “we would have to proceed carefully.” It is the rhythm of a dermatologist accustomed to the modern age of science and seasoned in the solitude of the laboratories at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, a prestigious research center in New York where he spent more than 20 years researching melanoma. In the early 2000s, with his wife Carrie Gross, he founded a brand bearing his name that has become one of the most recognized in the world. It is sold at Sephora and Nordstrom and has just been acquired by Japanese beauty giant Shiseido. Gross could retire tomorrow if he wanted to, but he continues to consult every day, and his Upper East Side and Hamptons offices have a long waiting list of illustrious names on it.

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]]>David Cabrera<![CDATA[Minimalism or exhibitionism? Here come curtain-less windows ]]>https://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2024-05-19/minimalism-or-exhibitionism-here-come-curtain-less-windows.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2024-05-19/minimalism-or-exhibitionism-here-come-curtain-less-windows.htmlSun, 19 May 2024 02:05:08 +0000A new marker of social status has risen above: huge, stunning windows made of fine materials, but totally naked of curtains and that showcase the private life of the owners of renovated apartments in the gentrified areas of the world’s great capitals. The New York Times reports on Brooklyn Heights’ obligatory uncurtained windows, describing them as “ethnological dioramas” of white and millennial inhabitants of the West Village and Park Slope. The Guardian has found them on the stately apartments of West London, and TikTok has made viral content of them. The hashtags #NakedWindows and #staresinrichpeoplewindowsnyc are among the most popular in Manhattan, bringing together the TikTokers who take to the streets with real anthropological interest in spying, through such windows, on the lives of their rich neighbors in order, so they say, to copy their decorating acumen. In some videos the owners even appear, proud and smiling, through their vast, naked panes.

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]]>Javi Aznárez<![CDATA[Facebook vs. Instagram: Each generation has its social network]]>https://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2024-04-01/facebook-vs-instagram-each-generation-has-its-social-network.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2024-04-01/facebook-vs-instagram-each-generation-has-its-social-network.htmlMon, 01 Apr 2024 23:46:38 +0000“Facebook is the geriatric ward,” argues the British newspaper The Economist. “It’s the cemetery: you go in to see who has died,” says Felipe Romero, a partner at The Cocktail consulting firm. Its current mission is equivalent to that of the yellow pages at the end of the 20th century: to prove that you exist, or that you have at some time existed. It was the first social network and it brought boomers, generation Xers and millennials together in a happy conjunction where people reconnected with ex-boyfriends and schoolmates. There was human dialogue — that is, one person spoke and another answered — and no one on the platform was an artificial intelligence. There was laughter, tears, arguments, and reconciliations. That was engagement, but no one knew it: marketing jargon had not yet contaminated everything.

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]]>Anadolu<![CDATA[Here’s the recipe (and history) of one of the best Moroccan couscous, La Mamounia’s version]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-11-26/heres-the-recipe-and-history-of-one-of-the-best-moroccan-coucous-la-mamounias-version.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-11-26/heres-the-recipe-and-history-of-one-of-the-best-moroccan-coucous-la-mamounias-version.htmlSun, 26 Nov 2023 07:00:00 +0000“There are as many couscous recipes as people who eat couscous.” Faced with such a statement, Rachid Agouray (50 years old) smiles skeptically, hesitates, and offers a hearty denial: “There’s not so many, it’s one thing that everyone thinks they know how to make couscous… That, I’ll give you”.

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]]>Asier Rua<![CDATA[‘The white we demand in our teeth does not exist in nature’: How Hollywood established impossible dental perfection]]>https://english.elpais.com/people/2024-02-08/the-white-we-demand-in-our-teeth-does-not-exist-in-nature-how-hollywood-established-impossible-dental-perfection.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/people/2024-02-08/the-white-we-demand-in-our-teeth-does-not-exist-in-nature-how-hollywood-established-impossible-dental-perfection.htmlThu, 08 Feb 2024 16:15:55 +0000“Unpopular opinion: very white teeth are rare,” writes a user on Reddit. In addition, if all the people in a closed space have perfectly aligned teeth and exactly the same range of white smiles, it is creepy. It is almost dystopian. Another opinion, was expressed by Bad Bunny: “No matter how ugly your teeth are, don’t have them fixed. I regret it every day of my life.” The artist complained that it seems like “you’re still not an artist until you get your teeth done.” He said this four years ago, but it seems that the message did not sink in.

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]]>Blanca Lopez<![CDATA[Morocco’s La Mamounia: 100 years of luxury and secrets, a cherished retreat for everyone from Churchill to the Kardashians]]>https://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2024-02-02/moroccos-la-mamounia-100-years-of-luxury-and-secrets-a-cherished-retreat-for-everyone-from-churchill-to-the-kardashians.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2024-02-02/moroccos-la-mamounia-100-years-of-luxury-and-secrets-a-cherished-retreat-for-everyone-from-churchill-to-the-kardashians.htmlFri, 02 Feb 2024 20:53:35 +0000“Gardens? Who cares about gardens? Jacques Majorelle? Yves Saint Laurent? We’re in the best hotel in the world — why are we going out?” said Anna Delvey (real name Sorokin) disdainfully as she sipped champagne in the Inventing Anna Netflix series about the one of the most notorious con artists of the 21st century. In May 2017, a woman named Anna, who claimed to be the heiress of a wealthy German art collector, arrived at La Mamounia Hotel (number six on the list of 2023′s best hotels in the world) in Marrakech with three friends. They booked one of the hotel’s most luxurious riads (a traditional Moroccan house with an interior garden) — a 7,500 square-foot (700 square meters) space with lavish carpets, Persian decor, a private pool and lush gardens. Two days later, there was a problem. The discreet hotel staff promptly informed Anna about her credit card issue and requested a different payment method. Anna, who successfully conned New York’s elite, loudly complained and threatened to call her father, saying she would leave immediately by helicopter. “I remember management saying, ‘The riad 3 credit card has been declined.’ I was the first to notice that something was wrong,” said La Mamounia manager Pierre Jochem.

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]]>Asier Rua<![CDATA[What the Web 1.0 geeks can teach us]]>https://english.elpais.com/technology/2024-01-17/what-the-web-10-geeks-can-teach-us.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/technology/2024-01-17/what-the-web-10-geeks-can-teach-us.htmlWed, 17 Jan 2024 18:47:40 +0000At first, “extremely online” was a way of life, then it became a concept and later a trend about which several books were written. The newest book on the topic, authored by Taylor Lorenz, a technology columnist for The Washington Post, bears the fitting title Extremely Online.

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]]>Sean Gallup (Getty Images)<![CDATA[Rucking, ice baths and hand strengthening: Trends for getting in shape in 2024]]>https://english.elpais.com/health/2024-01-08/rucking-ice-baths-and-hand-strengthening-trends-for-getting-in-shape-in-2024.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/health/2024-01-08/rucking-ice-baths-and-hand-strengthening-trends-for-getting-in-shape-in-2024.htmlMon, 08 Jan 2024 15:58:18 +0000Every year, fitness experts respond to various surveys to predict the trends and patterns that will be guiding gyms and personal trainers around the world. Those recommended by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) are some of the most eagerly awaited, but by no means the only ones. Here is a summary of the new trends we can expect to see this year in gyms around the world.

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]]>AlenaPaulus<![CDATA[Why has the internet become so boring?]]>https://english.elpais.com/technology/2023-12-08/why-has-the-internet-become-so-boring.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/technology/2023-12-08/why-has-the-internet-become-so-boring.htmlFri, 08 Dec 2023 15:35:24 +0000Everything seems too similar and there are hardly any new experiences. No more discovery and random connection with strangers (which is not the same as talking to a bot). Everything is repeated in an infinite loop by the work and grace of crazy algorithms that pressure us to adopt identical formats — first selfies, now reels, then who knows what next — and talk (if we fight, so much the better) about the same topics. The price of resistance is irrelevance. Don’t you often feel like you’ve spent two hours on the internet without really knowing what you’ve been doing? Aza Raskin created the infinite scroll in 2006, and in 2018, he admitted in a BBC interview that he regretted it: “It’s as if they’re taking behavioral cocaine and just sprinkling it all over your interface and that’s the thing that keeps you coming back and back and back.”

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]]>Roberta Vázquez<![CDATA[Are we running out of champagne? This holiday season’s drama ]]>https://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2023-12-05/are-we-running-out-of-champagne-this-holiday-seasons-drama.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2023-12-05/are-we-running-out-of-champagne-this-holiday-seasons-drama.htmlTue, 05 Dec 2023 23:10:00 +0000We live in strange time, amidst natural disasters and wars, and champagne — they say — is once again about to run out. We’re popping more bottles than ever. Demand is high and money flows more abundantly than even the sparkling French wine itself. For the third year in a row, the grand old champagne producers are floating the idea of a shortage. Their best customers, anxious and thirsty, hoard, speculate and run up prices.

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]]>Javi Aznárez<![CDATA[MRIs for no reason? The health debate unleashed by Kim Kardashian ]]>https://english.elpais.com/health/2023-11-12/mris-for-no-reason-the-health-debate-unleashed-by-kim-kardashian.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/health/2023-11-12/mris-for-no-reason-the-health-debate-unleashed-by-kim-kardashian.htmlSun, 12 Nov 2023 16:26:19 +0000The codes of money and social status change rapidly in these times of technocapitalism. The last time Kim Kardashian bragged on Instagram about accessing elite medical technology, it was to prove that her bottom was real with an X-ray. But this past August, the businesswoman posted about another event that gives her greater peace of mind and all the illusion of control that she needs (at least for a year). Wearing slippers and a gray hospital gown, Kim posed in front of an MRI machine — a tube in which she presumably spent an hour while barely moving, as all of her organs were examined. The full body scan concluded that she had no growths that could cause immediate harm or discomfort.

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]]>Ricardo Funari ( LightRocket / Getty Images )<![CDATA[Chaumet: Newly minted millionaires are buying gold and diamonds, not Bitcoin]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-11-06/chaumet-newly-minted-millionaires-are-buying-gold-and-diamonds-not-bitcoin.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-11-06/chaumet-newly-minted-millionaires-are-buying-gold-and-diamonds-not-bitcoin.htmlMon, 06 Nov 2023 21:31:53 +0000Chaumet, the French luxury jewelry house’s airy workshop in Paris, overlooks Trajan’s column in the center of Place Vendôme. The jeweler that made pieces for Josefina Bonaparte, Eugenia de Montijo and Olga Picasso, has its artisans hard at work creating a tiara for a young and wealthy Chinese entrepreneur. That’s all we know about this important customer who demanded the tiara be ready for her company’s final board meeting of the year. Adorned with a resplendent gold and diamond tiara worth over $3 million, the businesswoman aims to exude an aura of divine elegance, assert her dominance in the boardroom, and leave no doubt as to who’s in charge.

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]]>Léa Crespi<![CDATA[The 85% rule, or why you shouldn’t give work your all]]>https://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2023-09-26/the-85-rule-or-why-you-shouldnt-give-work-your-all.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2023-09-26/the-85-rule-or-why-you-shouldnt-give-work-your-all.htmlTue, 26 Sep 2023 14:01:14 +0000Stay calm. You don’t have to have a passion. Much less chase after it. You can be a calm person with mundane hobbies and still be very good at what you do. Even the best.

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]]>Bea Crespo<![CDATA[Are 60 the new 40? This is how men search for eternal youth]]>https://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2023-09-24/are-60-the-new-40-this-is-how-men-search-for-eternal-youth.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2023-09-24/are-60-the-new-40-this-is-how-men-search-for-eternal-youth.htmlSun, 24 Sep 2023 23:10:00 +0000“In five years, guessing people’s ages will be very hard. We are all going to be 38.” These are the words of David Sampayo, a Spanish doctor specialized in hair surgery with offices in Madrid, Valencia and Ibiza. According to the expert, age codes are blurring so quickly that soon we will be 40-ish indefinitely. It will be the end of age groups. We will always be young adults of ambiguous age.

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]]>Joshua Sammer (Getty Images)<![CDATA[How bureaucracy is taking over our workday ]]>https://english.elpais.com/economy-and-business/2023-09-21/how-bureaucracy-is-taking-over-our-workday.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/economy-and-business/2023-09-21/how-bureaucracy-is-taking-over-our-workday.htmlThu, 21 Sep 2023 19:07:33 +0000“No matter what you studied, your job will always consist of sending e-mails and filling out Excel spreadsheets.” This maxim, read in a tweet, summarizes the current state of affairs. We are all assistants, auditors and accountants, devoting a good part of the day to these tasks — and to struggle with the software and apps that are supposed to assist us in our unexpected administrative role.

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]]>CRISTINA ESTANISLAO<![CDATA[Can we learn to control our dreams?]]>https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-09-08/can-we-learn-to-control-our-dreams.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-09-08/can-we-learn-to-control-our-dreams.htmlFri, 08 Sep 2023 15:16:19 +0000Choose an argument each night. Write the script following the laws of dramaturgy. Build more or less solid characters. Enter and exit the plot at will. And all this while you sleep, dreaming as though you were awake. The utopia of controlling our dreams has never been so close.

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]]>Peter Horree (Alamy / Cordon Press)<![CDATA[Digital culture is changing our face: How South Korea is inspiring new cosmetic trends]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-08-25/digital-culture-is-changing-our-face-how-south-korea-is-inspiring-new-cosmetic-trends.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-08-25/digital-culture-is-changing-our-face-how-south-korea-is-inspiring-new-cosmetic-trends.htmlFri, 25 Aug 2023 12:26:56 +0000“I’ve seen the future, and it’s poreless,” writes Elise Hu, a former NPR correspondent in Seoul, in her book Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital. Hu lived in Seoul for five years and was introduced to the attitude of oemo jisang juui — which translates to “looks are supreme.” She learned to tolerate the mothers at school, who continually asked her when she was going to “take care of her problem.” Her “problem” was her freckles. She had to explain to her daughters why she wouldn’t give them free cosmetic procedures when they got good grades, which was a standard practice in their class, and she had to put up with the widespread suspicion that her three-year-old wore eyelash extensions. She even got used to the fact that her passport photos were retouched by default, she tells EL PAÍS by phone. In her book, she recounts what it’s like to live in the capital of a country that is defining the new global aesthetic canon, with more than 9,000 beauty brands part of the K-beauty phenomenon.

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]]>Victor Boyko (WIBA ACADEMY LLC /<![CDATA[Misophonia: the torture of the sound of someone chewing next to you]]>https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-08-21/misophonia-the-torture-of-the-sound-of-someone-chewing-next-to-you.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-08-21/misophonia-the-torture-of-the-sound-of-someone-chewing-next-to-you.htmlMon, 21 Aug 2023 16:03:40 +0000One in five people suffers from misophonia, a disorder that causes excruciating discomfort as a result of the noises made by other people. In the United Kingdom it affects 20% of the population, according to a recent study, and likewise in Spain, according to the calculations of researcher Antonia Ferrer Torres, who has completed her doctoral thesis on this condition at the Institute of Neurosciences of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Given the severity of the ordeal faced by a person suffering from this horrible disorder — what researchers call “strong emotional reactions to certain sounds” — it would be more appropriate to describe one’s suffering as torture.

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]]>Gianluca Battista<![CDATA[Chatting with strangers: Why the practice is dying out and why that matters]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2023-07-28/chatting-with-strangers-why-the-practice-is-dying-out-and-why-that-matters.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2023-07-28/chatting-with-strangers-why-the-practice-is-dying-out-and-why-that-matters.htmlFri, 28 Jul 2023 15:07:29 +0000More things would happen to us, and we would have a more interesting life, if we went back to chatting with strangers. That’s according to Nicholas Epley, a behavioral scientist and professor at the University of Chicago. Epley came to that conclusion after conducting multiple experiments aimed at explaining why we have become more antisocial over the past decade.

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]]>CASTLE ROCK ENTERTAINMENT / Album<![CDATA[ ‘Sunscreen is toxic’: The new conspiracy theory that is spreading through the internet ]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2023-07-17/sunscreen-is-toxic-the-new-conspiracy-theory-that-is-spreading-through-the-internet.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2023-07-17/sunscreen-is-toxic-the-new-conspiracy-theory-that-is-spreading-through-the-internet.htmlMon, 17 Jul 2023 20:12:08 +0000These days you can be an influencer of almost anything and succeed, dazzling an audience of millions that show their love in the form of engagement. And when we say “anything,” we mean anything. One needs to look no further than the new and unexpected crusade that this summer wants to impact our lives (and our epithelial cells): the advocates of the anti-sunscreen movement.

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]]>Europa Press News<![CDATA[Ah, to be young and scandalized: Who are these ‘puriteens,’ anyway?]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2023-07-10/ah-to-be-young-and-scandalized-who-are-these-puriteens-anyway.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2023-07-10/ah-to-be-young-and-scandalized-who-are-these-puriteens-anyway.htmlMon, 10 Jul 2023 23:36:24 +0000There is a current — some call it a digital subculture — stirring the internet. They are the neo-puritans: young people, almost teenagers, scandalized by everything. With the battle cry of “Gross!” they express their hatred of sex, drugs and alcohol, but also of age-gap couples or those who date short people. They see lewdness and hypersexualization everywhere they look and are quick to label any human interaction as pedophilia. Under their watchful gaze, we are all sexual predators until proven otherwise.

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]]>Iván Bravo<![CDATA[Flirt, love, suffer, reboot: This is how AI is transforming our relationships ]]>https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-07-08/flirt-love-suffer-reboot-this-is-how-ai-is-transforming-our-relationships.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-07-08/flirt-love-suffer-reboot-this-is-how-ai-is-transforming-our-relationships.htmlSat, 08 Jul 2023 16:46:45 +0000After several months of wasting time on dating apps, Dmitri Mirakyan, a 28-year-old data scientist, simply assumed that he did not know how to flirt. He asked his friends; everyone had the same problem. They lived in New York and spent hours wearing themselves out in endless virtual chats trying to meet someone. “It was a slow, emotionally draining process. I had no idea how to banter; not for nothing my previous partners complained that I was excessively logical.” Thus, Mirakyan created YourMove.ai, an app that uses chatGPT3 to initiate the small talk that comes before flirty banter – a skill that we humans used to be so good at.

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]]>Cinta Arribas<![CDATA[Laurent Ballesta, raconteur of the oceans ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-07-04/laurent-ballesta-raconteur-of-the-oceans.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-07-04/laurent-ballesta-raconteur-of-the-oceans.htmlTue, 04 Jul 2023 22:20:18 +0000Let me introduce you to a man who regularly risks life and limb as an extreme explorer, an uncommon job in 2023. His name is Laurent Ballesta, and he was born in 1974 in Montpellier, France. What sets him apart from you and me is his vast experience exploring the depths of the ocean. He has immersed himself for hours, days, weeks to experience a completely different world beneath the surface. Imagine swimming among 700 gray sharks, their movements synchronized with fierce determination as they hunt their prey. Picture capturing the intense moment of a small fish narrowly escaping the jaws of its predator. Envision the grandeur of an iceberg, not just the tip, but its entire majestic presence. And imagine coming face to face with a living fossil, a creature once believed to be extinct. All these extraordinary encounters have taught Ballesta about the violence of the depths, with all its cruelty and beauty. He embodies multiple roles – diver, marine biologist and renowned nature photographer. Beyond capturing breathtaking visuals, he is also a captivating storyteller. But he has a strict rule about revealing his plans beforehand. There is no braggadocio or breathless announcements of his adventures to be found on social media. “People tend to talk a lot before going on expeditions, but not so much after. Probably because they haven’t discovered anything new,” he told El PAÍS from Andromède Océanologie, his operations center at Carnon Beach near Montpellier.

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]]>Laurent Ballesta (Andromède Océanologie)<![CDATA[Electa Navarrete, celebrity nutritionist: ‘When a patient cries during their appointment, you have managed to connect’]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2023-07-03/electa-navarrete-celebrity-nutritionist-when-a-patient-cries-during-their-appointment-you-have-managed-to-connect.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2023-07-03/electa-navarrete-celebrity-nutritionist-when-a-patient-cries-during-their-appointment-you-have-managed-to-connect.htmlMon, 03 Jul 2023 21:48:46 +0000“Are you calling me fat, doctor?”

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]]>Samuel Sánchez<![CDATA[Why thinking that we are fit translates into leading a healthier life ]]>https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-06-26/why-thinking-that-we-are-fit-translates-into-leading-a-healthier-life.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-06-26/why-thinking-that-we-are-fit-translates-into-leading-a-healthier-life.htmlMon, 26 Jun 2023 20:25:43 +0000Self-deception, confirmation biases, seeing what we want to see and hearing only what suits us are all ways to escape reality. This is not an advisable thing to do — except in one circumstance, the only one where cognitive distortion does seem to work in our favor: the self-perception of our physical activity. More and more studies show that a frame of mind that can help us improve our physical condition does not necessarily have to mirror the truth.

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]]>Mònica Torres<![CDATA[The rise, fall and reinvention of memes]]>https://english.elpais.com/eps/2023-06-01/the-rise-fall-and-reinvention-of-memes.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/eps/2023-06-01/the-rise-fall-and-reinvention-of-memes.htmlThu, 01 Jun 2023 18:36:00 +0000A meme does more than unite people against a common enemy. It can bring a smile to our faces, even if we disagree with it. And they’re hard to forget. Take the Ecce Homo in the Sanctuary of Mercy church in Borja, Spain, a fresco depicting Jesus painted in 1930 and clumsily restored in 2012 by Cecilia Giménez. The botched restoration made Jesus look like a monkey, so the internet dubbed it Ecce Mono (roughly Behold the Monkey) and made it Spain’s most famous meme. Or Tomasa Pérez’s oldest son from Córdoba who converted to Islam after her marriage to a Muslim and became Yassin, a jihadist who made us chuckle as he solemnly threatened us all with death in a video after the 2017 Rambla terrorist attack in Barcelona. A meme is a wondrous artifact that soothes and unites us with the internet. It has brought, and should continue to bring, a deep sense of joy. The success of memes has inspired all kinds of pursuits, from marketing and politics to philosophy, art and science. Everyone wants to be a part of the splendid essence of a meme.

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]]><![CDATA[Coping, emotional labor, ‘gaslighting’: Why do we talk as if we were psychologists?]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2023-05-27/coping-emotional-labor-gaslighting-why-do-we-talk-as-if-we-were-psychologists.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2023-05-27/coping-emotional-labor-gaslighting-why-do-we-talk-as-if-we-were-psychologists.htmlSat, 27 May 2023 18:46:36 +0000There are 17-year-olds who express themselves with the hermeticism of a Lacanian psychoanalyst and 50-year-olds who have just discovered that all their lives they have been victims of narcissistic triangulation in their romantic relationships. Last weekend, over dinner, Maria F. (not her real name), 16, informed her parents that they were “a dysfunctional family.” “Since you guys didn’t go to therapy, you haven’t overcome your traumas and have transferred them to us,” she said to them before devouring the last piece of sandwich.

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]]><![CDATA[Why is it so difficult to meet someone (especially if we plan to)? ]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2023-05-16/why-is-it-so-difficult-to-meet-someone-especially-if-we-plan-to.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2023-05-16/why-is-it-so-difficult-to-meet-someone-especially-if-we-plan-to.htmlTue, 16 May 2023 17:51:26 +0000After a week and a long thread of WhatsApp messages, Rachel (not her real name) made plans with her friends from college to meet up for a picnic at the park. It was a plan that was decided upon after negotiating with her friends, one of which suffers from hay fever and another one who made them cancel two meals at indoor locations: on one occasion because the restaurant did not accept pets and the other because they did not serve gluten-free food. In all, three weeks passed before they were all able to get their calendars to align for the meeting. It had been impossible to get together any sooner. Exhausted, Rachel ended up asking herself once again why she took on the thankless task of calling her friends and urging them to meet up at least twice a year. But Rachel had not yet seen it all: 24 hours before the group was supposed to meet up, she messaged them to confirm the plan. Then there was an ominous silence that an hour later was deafening.

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]]><![CDATA[Instructions for learning how to shut up ]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2023-05-10/instructions-for-learning-how-to-shut-up.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2023-05-10/instructions-for-learning-how-to-shut-up.htmlWed, 10 May 2023 14:12:28 +0000Therapy to make us shut up. Books to convince us that silence is increasingly valuable. Gurus who promise to cure us of our urges to say everything, everywhere. After a decade of training and learning to be loud on the internet, in 2023 we are being told that talking less accomplishes much more. A book on this subject is a New York Times bestseller and Time magazine made the topic a cover story.

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]]><![CDATA[The Colombian shoemaker turning the Italian footwear industry on its head]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-04-29/the-colombian-shoemaker-turning-the-italian-footwear-industry-on-its-head.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-04-29/the-colombian-shoemaker-turning-the-italian-footwear-industry-on-its-head.htmlSat, 29 Apr 2023 14:52:36 +0000Edgardo Osorio, 37, knows how to say no. And he’ll say it as often as he needs to, but always with a wide smile of straight, extremely white teeth. He only does what he feels like doing, and he does it from the halls of the Corsini Palace in Florence, Italy, where he’s lived and worked since 2014. Fifteen years ago, he didn’t live in a beautiful Quattrocento palazzo, and barely spoke any Italian, but he had the same smile, good contacts, and that special something called charm, which he calls “just being friendly.” “In Italy, a smile goes a long way,” he admits. Osorio founded Aquazzura in 2012, a brand that today brings in annual revenues of around €70 million. He got his start creating luxury sandals with 4-inch heels that promised the impossible: you could dance in them all night long.

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]]><![CDATA[Why going for a walk can cure (almost) anything ]]>https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-04-18/why-going-for-a-walk-can-cure-almost-anything.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-04-18/why-going-for-a-walk-can-cure-almost-anything.htmlTue, 18 Apr 2023 15:21:30 +0000Paradoxically, in the hyperactive 21st century, going for a meandering walk is starting to get good press. When asked about the benefits of wandering aimlessly, a neuroscientist spends 20 minutes enumerating the reasons to walk for 20 to 30 minutes every day. “There are two kinds of walking: doing it in familiar places and in new places. If you walk in places you already know, the first positive effects are cardiovascular activation: if you move your legs, you move your heart. As you walk, you turn your head: your field of vision changes and you encounter visual stimuli to the right and to the left. In this way, both cerebral hemispheres are activated. The walk makes them communicate with each other. That is a magnificent exercise, because in the brain, one hemisphere tends to dominate the other,” says doctor Bruno Ribeiro, professor in the Human Anatomy and Psychobiology department of the University of Murcia, Spain.

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]]><![CDATA[Brown noise: What is it and what is behind its hypnotic effect?]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2023-04-08/brown-noise-what-is-it-and-what-is-behind-its-hypnotic-effect.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2023-04-08/brown-noise-what-is-it-and-what-is-behind-its-hypnotic-effect.htmlSat, 08 Apr 2023 15:36:02 +0000Nowadays, thousands of people use white noise or Lo-Fi music to concentrate while they work or study. These types of sounds, they point out, help them regain control of their attention, tuning out the hundreds of stimuli that compete for it throughout the day.

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]]><![CDATA[‘Looking at your real face in a mirror could scare you’: How filters hurt our mental and physical health ]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2023-03-31/looking-at-your-real-face-in-a-mirror-could-scare-you-how-filters-hurt-our-mental-and-physical-health.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2023-03-31/looking-at-your-real-face-in-a-mirror-could-scare-you-how-filters-hurt-our-mental-and-physical-health.htmlFri, 31 Mar 2023 02:22:45 +0000Cosmetic surgeons nostalgically remember the days when their patients would come to their offices with a photo of, say, Angelina Jolie and say: “I want to look like this.” The response was as simple as handing back the photo and telling them: “That’s nice, but you’re not Angelina Jolie.”

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]]><![CDATA[To book or audiobook? That is not the question]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-03-25/to-book-or-audiobook-that-is-not-the-question.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-03-25/to-book-or-audiobook-that-is-not-the-question.htmlSat, 25 Mar 2023 13:19:33 +0000Is listening to an audiobook the same as reading it? Am I cheating if I go to my book club having listened to the novel instead of reading it? Daniel Willingham, a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Virginia and author of The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads, says that these are the questions he has to answer most; after conducting many experiments in his lab and writing a book, he is considered an expert on the subject. Professor Willingham usually answers in Solomon-like fashion: reading is not superior to listening, but the two aren’t the same, either.

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]]><![CDATA[How long should you take to respond to a WhatsApp?]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2023-03-18/how-long-should-you-take-to-respond-to-a-whatsapp.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2023-03-18/how-long-should-you-take-to-respond-to-a-whatsapp.htmlSat, 18 Mar 2023 13:46:33 +0000Not answering messages is a form of resistance: being ostensibly available, visibly online but without replying, being a sphinx in the era of hyper visibility. “We are becoming empathic machines, mechanically reacting to whatever happens with a smile and a LOL,” wrote Geert Lovink in his 2019 book Sad by Design. Today, refusing to respond is subversive.

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]]><![CDATA[Working from home opens the door to ‘productivity paranoia’ ]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2023-03-12/working-from-home-opens-the-door-to-productivity-paranoia.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2023-03-12/working-from-home-opens-the-door-to-productivity-paranoia.htmlSun, 12 Mar 2023 00:30:05 +0000José L.: Good morning

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]]><![CDATA[What science knows about ghosting: It’s worse than direct rejection]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2023-03-07/what-science-knows-about-ghosting-its-worse-than-direct-rejection.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2023-03-07/what-science-knows-about-ghosting-its-worse-than-direct-rejection.htmlTue, 07 Mar 2023 20:36:57 +0000It’s the magic of vanishing, leaving a message on read, abruptly disappearing with the help of technology. Ghosting, an unfortunate but convenient practice, has entered our emotional vocabulary. It is now the norm, inevitable in the search for a partner on apps that promote the volume of interactions over a single object of desire. We’re all disposable and replaceable —so say academics who study the phenomenon around the world. If you’re looking for a partner, sooner or later, you’ll find yourself ghosting someone, or you’ll become a victim of someone who disappears abruptly without explanation.

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]]><![CDATA[Sexual dissatisfaction in the age of hookup culture ]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2023-03-05/sexual-dissatisfaction-in-the-age-of-hookup-culture.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2023-03-05/sexual-dissatisfaction-in-the-age-of-hookup-culture.htmlSun, 05 Mar 2023 13:33:05 +0000Anthropologist Helen Fisher calls millennials “the new Victorians” because of how little sex they have. For over a decade, the world’s most-cited scientist on the biology and chemistry of love has interviewed tens of thousands of singles (5,000 per year) for the Singles in America project, the largest global study of unmarried people. Year after year, Fisher has seen sex fall out of younger people’s top five priorities; a partner’s physical attractiveness has also disappeared from that category.

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]]>Patossa<![CDATA[Time flies, because we’re spending almost a quarter of each day scrolling on the internet ]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2023-02-28/time-flies-because-were-spending-almost-a-quarter-of-each-day-scrolling-on-the-internet.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2023-02-28/time-flies-because-were-spending-almost-a-quarter-of-each-day-scrolling-on-the-internet.htmlTue, 28 Feb 2023 15:17:28 +0000Time isn’t absolute. This phrase – most often attributed to Albert Einstein – certainly applies to the modern phenomenon of scrolling on the internet and totally losing track of the minutes and hours.

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]]>Albert Garcia<![CDATA[Why millennials are the new online dinosaurs]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2022-10-03/why-millennials-are-the-new-online-dinosaurs.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2022-10-03/why-millennials-are-the-new-online-dinosaurs.htmlMon, 03 Oct 2022 17:08:32 +0000Millennials. Even typing that word takes one back to 2012. Pampered by sociologists and marketing gurus, the generation born between 1980 and 1996 is now the object of ridicule on TikTok, where the latest generational battle is being waged. The millennial pause (#MillennialPause) is among the latest sendups. Those who are now 20 make videos imitating the bewilderment of a 30- or 40-year-old millennial in front of the camera. They press play and simulate a pause before starting to speak. Those two seconds, they say, give them away. A genuine Z knows that the TikTok camera is always rolling. But all millennials pause, even Taylor Swift. Making fun of millennials and their efforts not to look like millennials is a whole category of content on TikTok.

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]]><![CDATA[Francis Kurkdjian, creator of Baccarat Rouge 540: ‘People went crazy and it sold out immediately’ ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-01-24/francis-kurkdjian-creator-of-baccarat-rouge-540-people-went-crazy-and-it-sold-out-immediately.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-01-24/francis-kurkdjian-creator-of-baccarat-rouge-540-people-went-crazy-and-it-sold-out-immediately.htmlTue, 24 Jan 2023 17:43:15 +0000Some people believe that Francis Kurkdjian is, among those who are still alive and working in the industry, the best “nose” in the world. To find him, you have to go to an old building on Rue Étienne Marcel in Paris. The old elevator, locked with a giant padlock, advertises that the only available option is a dark wooden staircase, covered with a red carpet. No sophisticated scent marks the way, no code of classic luxury hints at the work carried out here. The door to the apartment where Kurkdjian has his office is small and made of old wood. Until someone from his team appears with a big smile, I’m not sure I’ve arrived at the right place. Once inside, in an office with three balconies and an orange tree is the creator of Baccarat Rouge 540, one of the best-selling (and most copied) fragrances produced in the past five years. Kurkdjian, of Armenian descent, is a shy version of what we might call a successful man. And he knows it. Today he has little desire to talk. It is 8am.

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]]>Léa Crespi<![CDATA[Sleep streamers: Some make money by sleeping, others pay to wake up strangers]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2023-01-08/sleep-streamers-some-make-money-by-sleeping-others-pay-to-wake-up-strangers.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2023-01-08/sleep-streamers-some-make-money-by-sleeping-others-pay-to-wake-up-strangers.htmlSun, 08 Jan 2023 21:36:05 +0000Do you find it relaxing to watch a stranger sleep? Would you enjoy waking them up with a shrill noise or, better, by shocking them? These days, some people would answer yes to all of the above, and they indulge their baser instincts with sleep streamers – people who sleep with a camera in front of their beds as they live stream themselves resting for an audience that watches and ... does not shut up.

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]]><![CDATA[From flexitarianism to exercise snacking: How we’ll keep fit in 2023]]>https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-01-05/from-flexitarianism-to-exercise-snacking-this-is-how-well-keep-fit-in-2023.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-01-05/from-flexitarianism-to-exercise-snacking-this-is-how-well-keep-fit-in-2023.htmlThu, 05 Jan 2023 03:38:17 +0000Every year, the worldwide survey of the Health & Fitness Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine determines the trends that will dominate the health and fitness industry in the following 12 months, with more than 3,700 experts making their predictions in a guide that serves as a sort of oracle by which many gyms in the world are governed. Here are the predictions for 2023.

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]]>getty<![CDATA[Drinking mushrooms, paying cash and sexploration: Here’s what we’re anticipating in 2023]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2022-12-15/drinking-mushrooms-paying-cash-and-engaging-in-sexploration-heres-what-were-eagerly-anticipating-in-2023.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2022-12-15/drinking-mushrooms-paying-cash-and-engaging-in-sexploration-heres-what-were-eagerly-anticipating-in-2023.htmlThu, 15 Dec 2022 04:16:02 +000001 The sound of silence

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]]>Sr. García<![CDATA[Are you a workaholic? Keys to discovering a work addiction]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2022-12-15/are-you-a-workaholic-keys-to-discover-a-work-addiction.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2022-12-15/are-you-a-workaholic-keys-to-discover-a-work-addiction.htmlThu, 15 Dec 2022 04:22:12 +0000A few years before buying Twitter, Elon Musk had warned that working for him was no walk in the park. “There are way easier places to work,” he noted, “but nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week.” According to Musk, when you love what you do, you are not actually “working.” Thus, you can do it without rest, every hour of the day and even without pay. This formula of making you feel both privileged (for doing something you love) and chosen (because you are changing the world) is a death trap for those who need external validation.

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]]>Feodora Chiosea<![CDATA[Plastic pollution expert Manuel Maqueda: ‘We’re using material that lasts thousands of years to make disposable stuff’ ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-11-12/plastic-pollution-expert-manuel-maqueda-were-using-material-that-lasts-thousands-of-years-to-make-disposable-stuff.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-11-12/plastic-pollution-expert-manuel-maqueda-were-using-material-that-lasts-thousands-of-years-to-make-disposable-stuff.htmlSat, 12 Nov 2022 04:18:01 +0000In 2010, Manuel Maqueda wandered around Oakland, California, with a watch that didn’t have any numbers or hands. Reflecting his stance on time, the dial simply read “Now!” Neither the future nor the past seemed to matter much to him. He was doing what he loved best: blazing trails. Two years earlier, he had met Captain Charles J. Moore, who discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. “I heard about plastic pollution for the first time,” he recalls. The next morning, he googled “pollution + plastic.” “There was nothing.” Maqueda had an epiphany: utilizing plastic was a design flaw. “We were using a non-biodegradable material that fragmented into particles and lasted thousands of years to make disposable stuff. It’s ridiculous.”

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]]>Daniel Ochoa de Olza<![CDATA[Do muscles really have the power of memory? ]]>https://english.elpais.com/sports/2022-11-02/do-muscles-really-have-the-power-of-memory.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/sports/2022-11-02/do-muscles-really-have-the-power-of-memory.htmlWed, 02 Nov 2022 14:37:39 +0000Going back to the gym after a break is hard. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been training every day for five years: the first day back after a holiday or a long weekend, you’re going to suffer as if you were going for the first time. That’s when you’ll hear the motivational magic phrase: “Come one, muscles have memory!” A monitor will say it with conviction and assure you the next time will be easier because you have “heart” and your muscles will reward you for your dedication and discipline in the gym.

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]]><![CDATA[Are melatonin supplements giving us nightmares? ]]>https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2022-10-22/are-melatonin-supplements-giving-us-nightmares.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2022-10-22/are-melatonin-supplements-giving-us-nightmares.htmlSat, 22 Oct 2022 18:36:38 +0000It’s increasingly common to find melatonin – be it in capsule, jelly or drop form – on nightstands. The search for better sleep has clearly become an obsession.

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]]><![CDATA[From Wordle to Scrabble: Do word games bring out the worst in people?]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-10-03/from-wordle-to-scrabble-do-word-games-bring-out-the-worst-in-people.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-10-03/from-wordle-to-scrabble-do-word-games-bring-out-the-worst-in-people.htmlMon, 03 Oct 2022 17:28:07 +0000Ever since Sam Ezersky, digital puzzles editor at The New York Times, took on the responsibility of choosing the words for the game Wordle, which is played by several million people worldwide, he has been inundated with hate mail. Every day, the 27-year-old engineer is insulted and threatened for a seemingly trivial matter: words. He had no choice but to close his Twitter account. He talks about the experience in an interview published in The Economist, in which he admitted that while he is not a “true word person” (he studied mathematics and engineering); he accepted the position in the puzzle section, because he loves solving problems.

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]]><![CDATA[Ten years of Tinder: a thousand ways to reject and be rejected in an endless loop]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2022-09-11/ten-years-of-tinder-a-thousand-ways-to-reject-and-be-rejected-in-an-endless-loop.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2022-09-11/ten-years-of-tinder-a-thousand-ways-to-reject-and-be-rejected-in-an-endless-loop.htmlSun, 11 Sep 2022 15:17:43 +0000We’re celebrating a decade on the dating network that has us hooked on swiping left (I’m interested) or right (I’m not interested) on our peers. Time has shown us that we all lie: men about their height and salary, women about their age. We have discovered that men give more than twice as many “likes” than women. Above all, we have verified that, no matter how many times we delete the application, we end up returning to it, captive to the swipe.

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]]><![CDATA[Does Pilates improve flexibility? Yes. Does it help lose weight? No]]>https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2022-08-27/pilates-flexibility-yes-weight-loss-no.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2022-08-27/pilates-flexibility-yes-weight-loss-no.htmlSat, 27 Aug 2022 03:57:41 +0000It’s well-regarded method and gets good press. We know it as Pilates, but the mind-body exercise developed in the early 20th century by Joseph Pilates was originally called “Contrology.” He conceived it as the science and art of using the mind to control the physical body, including its internal organs. One of its main virtues is that anyone can do it – men, women, the elderly, pregnant women, people with injuries, and mothers with their babies.

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]]><![CDATA[The weighted total futility index ]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2022-08-26/the-weighted-total-futility-index.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2022-08-26/the-weighted-total-futility-index.htmlFri, 26 Aug 2022 01:58:14 +0000You know the drill: Restart your computer (as the IT specialist always recommends). Try to sign in three times with the same password. Accept that you have forgotten your password and create a new one (the third this month). Re-type the new passwords, which mysteriously never seem to match. Log on to the internet. Check your email. Get frustrated with autocorrect. Turn off the video that started, even though you didn’t hit play. Look at your e-mail again (we check it every 6 minutes, or 121 times a day). Try to get rid of the advertisement that has commandeered your screen but somehow close the window you were using instead… Working these days means wasting a lot of time all day long.

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]]><![CDATA[What is the real price of having your dinner delivered in 10 minutes? ]]>https://english.elpais.com/economy-and-business/2022-08-17/what-is-the-real-price-of-having-your-dinner-delivered-in-10-minutes.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/economy-and-business/2022-08-17/what-is-the-real-price-of-having-your-dinner-delivered-in-10-minutes.htmlWed, 17 Aug 2022 17:19:13 +0000It’s happening in New York, Berlin and Madrid – layoffs and cutbacks at unicorn start-ups (companies valued at $1 billion) such as Gorillas, Jokr, Getir and Gopuff. Others such as Buyk, Fridge No More or Zero Grocery have vanished as quickly as they appeared.

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]]><![CDATA[Why sit-ups in the gym are a thing of the past ]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2022-07-26/why-sit-ups-in-the-gym-are-a-thing-of-the-past.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2022-07-26/why-sit-ups-in-the-gym-are-a-thing-of-the-past.htmlTue, 26 Jul 2022 01:00:44 +0000For many years, counting sit-ups at a good pace or doing “as many as you can in two minutes”, has been part of the ritual to stay fit. Bend your back, squeeze your abdomen, raise your back. And repeat for as long as the body can stand. The more the better. This used to be the path to glory; glory that would one day arrive in the form of six well-marked tablets on the abdomen, also known as a six-pack. But not everyone could achieve this, no matter how much they suffered. As part of the liturgy, the most consecrated would measure their progress by tapping the critical abdominal zone.

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]]><![CDATA[Twenty-five minutes of work, five minutes of break: Meet the productivity ninjas who obsess over time planning]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2022-03-10/twenty-five-minutes-of-work-five-minutes-of-break-meet-the-productivity-ninjas-who-obsess-over-time-planning.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2022-03-10/twenty-five-minutes-of-work-five-minutes-of-break-meet-the-productivity-ninjas-who-obsess-over-time-planning.htmlThu, 10 Mar 2022 00:03:50 +0000“I live in my Google Calendar, scheduling even my sleeping hours because time is a finite resource.” So says Amy Landino, planner, time sorceress and queen of the “Pomodoro Technique.” She has more than 401,000 followers on YouTube, people who want to learn how to get the most out of the 24 hours we are given every day, through the organization and mastery of tools and apps to optimize and fill each box on Google Calendar. A sort of fear of empty space full of different notifications that should lead them to the new nirvana: productivity. Amy reaches for a tomato-shaped kitchen timer (the pomodoro) and sets the clock: 25 minutes of work and full concentration, five minutes of break. Repeat four times.

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]]><![CDATA[What’s the best day to book a flight in Spain?]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/02/09/inenglish/1455017700_046809.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/02/09/inenglish/1455017700_046809.htmlTue, 09 Feb 2016 15:07:01 +0000Today, February 9, is the best day to purchase plane tickets online for the Easter holiday.

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