You can't turn off reality

In front of one of the works exhibited at the Hamburger Bahnhof, one of the venues for the Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, a visitor caught the public's attention today by commenting with enormous anguish that she had always believed that those born in her generation, the of World War II, they would be happy all their lives, because they would live without more wars; that she was convinced that her existence would be peaceful, calm, and without reason to be ashamed until the arrival of her death. But it does not seem that things are going to be like this, he affirmed, because it is not clear how the events of these dramatic days represented by the war with Ukraine will unfold. The madness of one man and his devoted minions determines the fate of the country, he pointed out. We can only guess what will be written about this in the history books fifty years from now. Pain, fear and shame: these are the feelings of today, he stated. Pain, because war affects us all. Fear, because our biological instinct is to preserve our life and that of those around us. Shame because we are responsible for this situation that can have serious consequences for everyone. Because the responsibility for what is happening today also lies with all of us who witnessed these dramatic events, because we did not know how to foresee and prevent them.

Faced with these reflections, and in an environment such as the one we find ourselves in, it is inevitable to consider what role art should play in our daily lives, bearing in mind that it should also focus on the conflicts that surround us. This is one of the central questions addressed by Still Present!, the twelfth edition of the Berlin Art Biennale. The works he shows can be judged for the way they push us to the limits, exposing pain, accepting physical extremes, causing emotions to rise to the surface of our skin with the aim of reclaiming the field of emotion through art. In extreme situations there is often the painful feeling that everything has changed, that we cannot understand why or understand what is happening. It is therefore the works that we observe here that present us with a position that does not leave us free, that does not offer escape routes, because its message crosses all walls. Failure to grasp it would be cynical. Because reality cannot be turned off.

Was Hitler bisexual and sadomasochistic?

Although he ordered the killing of thousands of homosexuals in the concentration camps, Adolf Hitler was sadomasochistic and bisexual and had a relationship that "embroidered the sexual" with his secretary, the powerful Rudolf Hess, affirms a profile of the Nazi leader elaborated during the Second World War. World by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor of the CIA.

The recently declassified report was prepared by anthropologist Henry Field, who collaborated in the Special Intelligence Unit of the White House in the time of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The document, about 70 pages, analyzes several aspects of the Nazi boss's life, from his daily routine, his diet to his musical tastes and his sexuality.

On page 28 of the report, Field says that when Hitler was imprisoned in Landsberg after his failed coup attempt, he maintained a "sexual-embracing" relationship with his right-hand man, Hess.

"After the murder of Roehm (the minister in Hitler's cabinet) I knew that Hess's nickname among the homosexual community was" Fraeulein Ana ", since it was known that she attended dances dressed as a woman (...) It was then that my suspicions about certain discrete characteristics in Hitler's personality began to get my attention, "Field wrote.

"After the murder of Rohem, small pieces of information were arriving until they forced me to consider Hitler as a sadomasochistic man with the possibility of a certain homosexual trait in him," Field wrote.

According to the investigation, when he was a young artist in Vienna, Hitler visited a men's residence, the "Mannerheim Brigittenau", known as a meeting point between older men who were looking for "young men for homosexual pleasures".

The report also assures that the Nazi leader sought as a loving ideal a couple that is "half mother and half girlfriend" and that "he obtained aesthetic satisfaction by seeing adolescents, boys or girls".

"His sexual life is as dual as his political vision, he is at the same time homosexual and heterosexual, socialist and a fervent nationalist, man and woman, although it is true that Adolf Hitler avoids being diagnosed, there are certain facts that prove that her sexual situation is unsustainable and, even, desperate, "concluded Field.

The symbol of evil hidden in La Pieta, by Michelangelo

It is said that the cardinal Gascon Jean Bilhères de Villiers (1435-1499), the ambassador of the French monarch in the Holy See, commissioned the artist Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) La Piedad, one of the most important works of Renaissance sculpture.

The Pieta represents a very young Virgin Mary holding the dead Christ. According to the contract signed by both parties, the sculptor would charge four hundred and fifty gold ducats as long as he delivered the work within one year. The Florentine genius completed his sculpture when two days were left to complete the year.

The sculpture is well known by everyone and does not need presentations. Perhaps what is not so popular is that the mouth of Christ has three incisors in the upper arch, instead of two, which is usual. In other words, it has a supernumerary tooth.

The connection with evil

It is known as supernumerary teeth those that exceed the usual dental formula: 20 "milk" or deciduous and 32 permanent teeth. The causes that motivate its appearance are unknown, although the existence of a hereditary pattern has been discovered.

Although supernumerary teeth can appear in any location, the most frequent is in the central area of ​​the maxillary arch, they are called mesiodens.

The depth of the Tuscan's thought can be intuited through his prolific artistic creation, in which theological, philosophical and anatomical conceptions can be guessed. It is known that he had vast knowledge of the human body, not in vain appears on the cover of some treatises of the Belgian physician Andreas Vesalio (1514-1564) participating in a dissection.

If it was not an anatomical error, what did the mesiodens symbolize? We must start from the premise that artists are often the notaries of their time and in the Renaissance the deformities of the body and anatomical anomalies were interpreted by some scholars -like Savoranola- as a figuration of evil. The fifth incisor was a metaphor for evil and sin.

Jesus and the burden of the sins of men

If we look closely at the Sistine Chapel we can discover that in hell there is more than one character with the fifth incisor. A symbolic nod that the Renaissance liked very much, as it represented for five decades, the time between La Piedad (1497-1499) and the Crucifixion of San Pedro in the Pasolina Chapel in Rome (1545-1550).

Now, how can we explain that the sculpture of Christ has a fifth incisor, according to this theological conception? The only possible explanation is that the Son of God has borne all the sins of men and with his blood has liberated Humanity from original sin.

It seems that when La Piedad by Michelangelo was exposed many critical voices questioned whether that genius could be the work of a Florentine -enemies found by the Romans- of 24 years.

The Florentine decided to settle the matter one night. In an attack of anger, of which he was quite accustomed to his contemporaries, he entered the Vatican and secretly chiselled on the ribbon of the Virgin's breast the following message: "Michel Agelus Bonarotus Florent Facieba" (Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florentine, did). In this way, La Piedad became the only work signed by the famous sculptor.

By the way, Miguel Ángel was not the only one to represent these dental malformations, we can also find them in La Piedad by Lorenzo Salimbeni (1568-1613) and in the Illustrations by Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) for the Divine Comedy.

How much electricity does the internet use?

The use of the internet devours much more energy than we imagine. The network of networks can be considered responsible for around a tenth of the consumption of direct electricity in the entire planet, according to Jonathan Koomey, a researcher at Stanford University. However, this figure must be taken with caution, because many of the computers that contribute to its magnitude are used for all kinds of tasks, not just data communication. This is especially true in the case of home computers or our phones. They are part of the internet, but we do not think of them as elements of the infrastructure that support our communications.

Despite being very high, the figure masks another reality: that our servers and computers are increasingly efficient from the energy point of view. In this way, a linear increase in its electricity consumption since 2000 has allowed an exponential increase in the amount of information circulating through the Network.

The large data centers that serve the content that we consume on a daily basis generate an important demand. So much so, that companies such as Google, Facebook or Apple must often build huge power plants with them to ensure their operation twenty-four hours a day. According to a study by Northwestern University (USA), only these centers are responsible for 3% of the energy consumed in the entire planet. Keep this in mind the next time you want to send the animated GIF of some kittens.

They discover accidentally a medicine to eat everything without getting fat

The team of scientists at Yale University has made a discovery that can revolutionize the world of science by accidentally finding a way to block certain "lymphatic portals" so as not to gain weight if overeating. The finding, coordinated and directed by Anne Eichmann and Feng Zang, took place thanks to a group of mice with morbid obesity after modifying the genes that seemed to protect them from weight gain, despite consuming a high-fat diet, according to ABC.

During the first weeks, the mice continued to maintain their initial weight. For that reason, they decided to pause the experiment until they discovered that there were two genes that had undergone a change in the intestine of rodents: certain "capillary lymphatic portals" or "lacteal" had been crushed.

The lacteals, according to the journal Nature, act as an entry for fatty acids, which allow them to pass into the bloodstream to provide energy or be stored as fat.

This discovery can not be applied in humans, but, instead of modifying the genes, a way could be devised to inhibit certain receptors to produce the same effect in the lacteals. In addition, when applying it in humans, the "ethical reasons" to carry it out come into play.

Nevertheless, experts have found a substitute for this drug that already exists and that has the approval of the US Food and Drug Administration to treat glaucoma, the main cause of blindness.