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The disease behind most heart attacks starts building up in the arteries in early adulthood

Daniel Mediavilla — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 15:28:07 GMT

Cardiovascular disease does not appear suddenly. Heart attacks and strokes are the result of years of accumulated damage that causes neither pain nor obvious symptoms, which is why healthy eating, exercise, not smoking and controlling blood pressure are so important. Now, an analysis of more than 16,800 healthy adults in Spain and Denmark suggests that silent atherosclerosis, the buildup of fatty plaques in the arteries that restrict blood flow without causing symptoms, begins much earlier than previously thought and affects more people than expected.

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The desert’s ‘resurrection plant’ paving the way to fridge-free vaccines

Lola Hierro — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 16:04:00 GMT

It lives in deserts where not a drop of rain falls for months, and botanists call it the resurrection plant for its seemingly miraculous return to life. When it receives no water, it looks brittle, shrunken and brownish — apparently dead. But as soon as the first drops begin to fall, its leaves unfurl and turn green within hours. The best-known example is the rose of Jericho (Selaginella lepidophylla), but there are others, and all are able to survive almost completely desiccated thanks to, among other mechanisms, a sugar called trehalose that protects the plant’s cells until water returns.

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There won’t be a single cancer vaccine, but rather a different one for each patient and tumor

Daniel Mediavilla — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 16:25:55 GMT

“We’ve been living with the promise of cancer vaccines for, probably, 100 years. Until now, all we had were studies that were inconclusive, but this one is conclusive.” Immunologist Antoni Ribas of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), who is part of the scientific committee for the Moderna and MSD (Merck in the U.S. and Canada) melanoma vaccine trial that made headlines last week, says he learned of the announcement when a reporter called him to ask about the results. Ribas says that despite his proximity to the project, he was not shown concrete data on the vaccine’s benefit. “With announcements of this magnitude, which can have a big impact on share prices, they do not give anyone the data in advance and they must notify everyone at the same time,” he explains.

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Ebola outbreak out of control in Democratic Republic of the Congo, WHO says: ‘It is spreading faster than our ability to contain it’

Prosper Heri — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 17:10:37 GMT

Hubert Nendakala no longer describes Ebola as a distant threat. In three weeks, the 40-year-old architect has lost a cousin and her husband, both border police officers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), whose eastern provinces are enduring an outbreak that has already caused more than 5,100 infections and 2,420 deaths since it began circulating earlier this year. “Taking it lightly could decimate us,” Nendakala warns EL PAÍS.

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Rocky Balboa’s lesson: How to combine cardio and weights to live longer and healthier

Aser García Rada — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 19:06:41 GMT

Any film buff passing through Philadelphia should sprint up the steps of the city’s Museum of Art, the institution in the birthplace of American independence immortalized by Rocky. Chances are they already know that, before charging up what are now known as the Rocky Steps, the boxer played by Sylvester Stallone followed a training regimen that combined running, push-ups, sit-ups and punching slabs of refrigerated beef. Rocky Balboa seemed to understand in 1976 what exercise science would take decades to confirm: we reap greater benefits from combining cardiovascular training, also known as aerobic or endurance exercise, with strength training than from doing either one alone.

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What makes a healthy vacation? Science points to longer breaks and exercise

Jessica Mouzo Quintáns — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 17:41:27 GMT

Two or three months of vacation are necessary. That was the view expressed by U.S. president William Taft in 1910: “After the hard and nervous strain to which one is subjected during the autumn and spring, [those months of rest] are necessary in order to enable one to continue his work the next year with that energy and effectiveness which it ought to have.” His remarks sparked a debate in The New York Times about how long vacations should last. And although the controversy remains unresolved more than a century later, science has gradually refined our understanding of what summer breaks should look like in order to provide proper rest and recovery.

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Bacteria in semen also condition pregnancy success: ‘Fertility clinics still focus mainly on the woman’

Selva Vargas Reátegui — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 16:22:33 GMT

Infertility affects about 48 million couples worldwide and, in a substantial share of cases, the specific cause is never identified. In this context, the study of the relationship between reproductive health and the microorganisms that inhabit our bodies (the microbiome) and reproduction has emerged only recently, and with a strong bias. Attention has focused especially on the female body, but a study just published in The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology & Women’s Health has taken a different approach. The work shifts the focus to the semen microbiome as well, examining its role in miscarriages and the success of fertility treatments.

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The benefits of ‘the ugliest color in the world’: A decade of evidence supports plain tobacco packaging

Oriol Güell Domínguez — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 17:02:41 GMT

Australia became the global benchmark in the fight against tobacco addiction in 2012. That year, despite strong industry pressure, the country implemented a set of measures that many governments have since followed to address a public health problem that causes seven million deaths a year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). One flagship decision was plain or standardized packaging, which reduces the appeal of cigarette packs by removing branding and emphasizing warnings about the harms of smoking. The government left nothing to chance and hired a consultancy to identify the least attractive color for the packs. The color chosen was Pantone 448 C, a dull blend of brown, gray and green that became known as “the ugliest color in the world” and has since been imitated by other countries.

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Ana Fernández-Sesma, biologist at Mount Sinai: ‘We have regressed 30 years in a single year of the Trump administration’

Nuño Domínguez — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 17:00:56 GMT

Ana Fernández-Sesma, 61, is a virologist and immunologist who heads the Department of Microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, where she has worked since 1991. Born in Spain, she moved to the United States after marrying the virologist Adolfo García-Sastre, an expert on pandemic influenza who works at the same institution, and she never returned. The couple still own a home in Madrid, which they visit whenever they can, and where she met EL PAÍS for this interview.

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Lenacapavir, the revolutionary HIV drug, still hasn’t reached Latin America

Joan Royo Gual — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 16:02:36 GMT

Two injections a year. That’s all it takes to protect against HIV with lenacapavir, a revolutionary drug hailed as potentially the beginning of the end of the epidemic, but its rollout has been slow. It has efficacy close to 100% and is already being distributed in small quantities in nine priority African countries. In middle-income countries such as those in Latin America it has not yet arrived, despite the fact that their residents took part in the clinical trials. The international HIV/AIDS conference held in Rio de Janeiro a few days ago was marked by protests against the pharmaceutical company that developed the drug and which, for now, holds the global monopoly: the U.S. firm Gilead Sciences.

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The secret weapon mosquitoes are using to win the war against humans: evading insecticides

Enrique Alpañés — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 10:32:59 GMT

Humans have been fighting a tiny animal for more than a century in an arms race that we had been winning. But things went wrong a decade ago. In 2015 cases of malaria —one of the diseases spread by mosquitoes—hit a historic low. Since then, however, figures have plateaued. Part of this inflection is explained by climate change, which has carried virus‑carrying mosquitoes to places where they were never seen before. But an unexpected advantage has also consolidated. The insecticides used since the 1970s to control mosquitoes have become less effective. These insects are evolving to evade them. Two recent studies explain how.

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‘A fascination with faeces’: How stool-gazing became a social media trend

Marita Alonso — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 19:44:14 GMT

One day, someone will look back on these strange times as the age of maxxing — the phenomenon driven by an obsession with maximizing some aspect of one’s life or body. There’s looksmaxxing, ballmaxxing... and now fibermaxxing, which has turned fiber into the new protein amid growing interest in gut health.

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José Flores, the 119‑year‑old from Costa Rica that experts are trying to certify as the world’s oldest person

Álvaro Murillo — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 14:56:58 GMT

Costa Rica’s Civil Registry says that on July 11, 1907—119 years ago—a woman named Josefa in the province of Guanacaste, on the country’s north Pacific coast, gave birth to a boy who was christened José Flores Flores. Everyone born in that first decade of the 20th century, and many who were born years later, are now deceased. But Mr. José still lives in good health in a rural municipality on the edge of a “blue zone,” a name given to regions with unusually high numbers of centenarians thanks to healthy living conditions.

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US recalls over 19 million eggs due to salmonella outbreak that has caused illness in nearly 100 people

Jordi Alonso Martínez Yañez — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 17:31:10 GMT

While health authorities continue working to contain the multistate cyclosporiasis outbreak, a new food contamination investigation has raised alarms across the United States. More than 19 million eggs have been recalled after health officials linked them to a Salmonella Enteritidis outbreak that has already caused illness in nearly 100 people in 17 states.

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AI-powered digital friends, the new threat to teenagers’ mental health

Manu González Pascual — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 08:13:56 GMT

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini are penetrating people’s private lives — including those of minors. More and more young people are turning to these tools for emotional queries. Psychologists warn that replacing human bonds with digital relationships can have deep effects on emotional development. In some cases the outcome can be fatal: in the U.S. several lawsuits have been filed by families of young people who allegedly self-harmed or even died by suicide after being encouraged to do so by such tools. That includes Sewell Setzer, 14, who took his own life after discussing that possibility with a synthetic character created on Character.ai with whom he was desperately in love and interpreting some of its remarks as an invitation to do it.

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Extreme heat is scorching our health: increased irritability, poorer sleep and more cardiovascular problems

Jessica Mouzo Quintáns — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Extreme heat makes us sick. And, in many ways, it kills us.

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Trump’s new conditions on funding the fight against HIV/AIDS require service restrictions

Ana Puentes — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 19:50:40 GMT

To preserve U.S. financing amid a wave of cuts initiated last year by the Trump administration, many organizations that combat HIV/AIDS had to mold themselves to Washington’s new rules, which limit programs related to diversity and inclusion, in addition to services that supposedly support abortion — or cease their programs entirely.

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Food-related scams are flooding social media with hyper-realistic AI-generated videos

Miguel Á. Lurueña — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 19:32:40 GMT

“If you bought fish at the market, put it in water. If it sinks, it’s fresh; if it floats, it’s bad.” Thus begins a video that has already been seen by more than 25 million people. The protagonist is Paco del Campo, an elderly man with a charming appearance who offers advice on diet and health. This is not an isolated case. In recent weeks very similar videos have proliferated and have also racked up millions of views. We can cite three examples, such as Eduardo, a middle-aged man who presents himself as an “expert in holistic health and a dietitian” and warns us about the alleged dangers of pangasius, tilapia and salmon in a video that begins: “Never eat these three fish if you don’t want to die tomorrow…”.

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The pool as therapy for people with severe neurological diseases: ‘I can do things without fear here’

Selva Vargas Reátegui — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 16:26:29 GMT

A heavy heat is the first thing you notice when you enter the pool area of the Fundación Instituto San José in Madrid’s Latina district. The space is completely enclosed and the water is 33ºC (91ºF) in the middle of summer. But the temperature is comfortable and the facility has a system that controls chlorine and humidity with clinical precision. Nobody comes here to swim or cool off; they come to recover movements that disease or injury had made impossible.

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Pollution leaves a mark on health: study finds more microplastics in heart attack patients

Jessica Mouzo Quintáns — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:37:27 GMT

The blood flowing through the arteries carries oxygen, nutrients and a great deal of information about our lifestyle. There, in the current that runs through those vessels and supplies the heart, lies data about our degree of physical activity, our diet and, according to a recent article, the pollution we are exposed to. A study published Wednesday in the journal European Heart Journal detected more microplastics in the blood of heart attack patients than in people who are healthy or who have chronic ischemic heart disease. Smokers and people more exposed to air pollution also showed a higher presence of these microscopic materials.

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Change jobs, leave your partner: why can’t some people stop giving advice?

Patricia Fernández Martín — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

You have to do this. Listen to me. Send that résumé. That person isn’t right for you. Move somewhere else. Quit that job... Phrases like these are heard often in conversations among friends, family or co-workers. It happens often in settings where the line between care, empathy and control is blurred. Some people feel a constant need to give advice, even when it hasn’t been asked for. They believe they’re doing something good, but often end up intruding in other people’s lives and sometimes damaging relationships. Those on the receiving end don’t always know how to stop the intrusion without seeming rude. Unsolicited advice can come across as invalidation or carry an implicit message: “You don’t know how to manage your own life; let me explain how to do it better.” That feeling can trigger guilt, resistance and even distance, especially when the advice comes from someone close.

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UN takes ‘historic’ step and declares neglected tropical diseases a human rights issue

Patricia R. Blanco — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 05:44:52 GMT

For two decades, Blandine Madom has lived with lymphatic filariasis, a parasitic disease better known as elephantiasis, which causes severe swelling of the limbs. When EL PAÍS met her last February in a Baka settlement in southern Cameroon, her legs were badly swollen from the condition, one of the roughly 20 illnesses classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as neglected tropical diseases.

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Marisol Donis, criminologist: ‘Asylums were tools for the confinement and social control of women’

Jessica Mouzo Quintáns — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 15:12:58 GMT

Luisa was locked up in an asylum for dreaming of cherubs. Juana was committed so her inheritance could be seized. Julia was confined for being irritable, energetic, and impulsive. Carmen was confined at her husband’s request, despite having no symptoms. The painter Leonora Carrington also ended up in a mental institution, on her father’s orders, after beginning a relationship with an older, married painter.

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Obesity is inherited: How genes shape our relationship with food

Enrique Alpañés — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 08:11:00 GMT

Obesity is written in our DNA and predicts, like a genetic prophecy, the body type we will have. A few decades ago it was easier to rebel against that fate — to fight our genetic programming and keep extra pounds at bay. But in an obesogenic world, surrounded by ubiquitous cheap and addictive food products, it is increasingly difficult. A series of recent scientific articles has strengthened this idea, which is gaining traction in the age of Ozempic and is helping to challenge the notion that obesity is a matter of personal choice or willpower.

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Why are we so willing to believe the incredible?

Francesc Miralles — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

In 1993, Paul Auster published The Red Notebook, in which he collected the most notable coincidences and oddities from his life and those of his friends. One such incident was a letter that the author, who died in 2024, found in his home mailbox. It was a returned missive that Auster was supposed to have sent to a certain Robert M. Morgan at his Seattle address. On the envelope the recipient’s name had been crossed out and someone had written, “Not at this address.”

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Words made to measure

— In his Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, John Koenig takes on the task of naming emotions and feelings we experience that were not yet in our vocabulary.

— One of the most beautiful neologisms is anemoia, which describes nostalgia for a time you have never experienced. The anemoic person always feels out of place and longs for another world, time or situation.

— Another one is gnossienne. According to Koenig, it is the awareness that someone you know has a mysterious inner life—meaning that the way that person thinks and behaves in private is very different from what you imagine.