Scents have the power to transform atmospheres, modulate behaviors, and can seduce, comfort, or heal. The sense of smell is the mirror of a society and also a historical portrait. This is stated by Dr. in neurosciences and research professor at CSIC, Laura López-Mascaraque, in her book El fascinante universo del olfato, published by geoPlaneta. A volume that aims to highlight the sense of smell, probably the greatly forgotten one, as priority has always been given to what we see and hear, when, in reality, smell is the gateway to memory and emotions and a way to explore the world.

Pol, Nil, Jan, Roc and Jacobo have met at Sol Soler on Plaça del Sol in Gràcia for some beers. As soon as they entered, Roc saw a girl who caught his attention.

Yaya Buschraft asks us not to say her real name, nor where she lives. She is in the mountains, that's for sure. Anyone who follows her on social media knows this, where she has thousands of followers, to whom she explains her day-to-day life building cabins. She decided this would be her life project when she was nearing 70, and now she tells her story in the book Living without asking permission (Penguin).

The 080 Barcelona Fashion closes its 37th edition with proposals from 26 brands, a clear international commitment, and its classic combination of established designers and young emerging talents. The move to Port Vell was experienced with a certain duality, as the spectacularity of the new location could not be fully enjoyed since the runway area was closed off by large black curtains that blocked the sea views. Nevertheless, we have selected some of the most prominent trends we saw over these four days of fashion.

What do localities like Tossa de Mar, Cardona, Bielsa, or Aýna have in common? Well, among other things, their undeniable tourist appeal, but also the fact that they have been the setting for landmark films such as Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, Chimes at Midnight, Palmeras en la nieve, or Amanece, que no es poco. These are four examples of locations that fit perfectly into what is known as screen tourism, a type of cultural tourism that drives visits to destinations, landscapes, or cities that have appeared in or are related to films, television series, or audiovisual productions of all kinds, such as documentaries, video games, or commercials, as well as events linked to the audiovisual world, such as festivals or themed gatherings. It is an upward trend that has been experiencing significant growth since the advent of streaming platforms and leads viewers to visit the settings where their favorite stories were filmed.

The new edition of 080 Barcelona Fashion starts this Tuesday full of novelties: the first and most evident is the change of location, since after years at the modernist complex of Sant Pau, the Catalan catwalk moves to Port Vell, specifically to the Trencaones promenade, where an ephemeral structure of more than 50 meters long will be installed to host the different proposals of the participating designers. The change of location had been considered for some time by the organization because Sant Pau had become too small for a catwalk that has been growing in recent years. The entry of the Barcelona City Council into the organization of the event – another novelty – which materializes with a contribution of 500,000 euros, has been decisive in choosing the new location, by the sea, which, as Moisès Rodríguez, director of the Consortium of Commerce, Crafts and Fashion, explains, makes Barcelona "the only catwalk that is by the sea". For Rodríguez, this new location also carries a message linked to the city's past, since "the sea is fundamental to the history of the Industrial Revolution in Catalonia and the development of the textile industry". "The port was a strategic place for the transport of cotton and this past connects us with the present of industry and fashion," he highlights. With the contribution of the City Council, and the support of the Diputació de Barcelona, which this edition has joined the project to boost the fashion sector, the total budget of 080 Barcelona Fashion is 2.8 million euros.

We've seen it in countless movies: "Hello, my name is so-and-so and I'm an alcoholic." We know the acronym Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and what it represents. But what we might not know is that behind these initials –and this recurring phrase– lies a twelve-step therapeutic method created by two men from Ohio in 1935, which has since helped millions of people worldwide. This method is now applied in 68 countries, including Spain, where there are up to 586 active Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) groups. A study by Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital concluded in 2020 that this AA twelve-step therapy "is more effective than other established treatments for increasing abstinence" and improves outcomes, especially "in the long term," helping people stay sober for longer. The survival and constant global expansion of this system for nearly a century also attest to its effectiveness.

She dreams a lot, every day, and in order not to forget them, she tells George the dream right away, in her sweet voice, while she hasn't opened her eyes yet: “I was leaning against the balustrade of the terrace of a large, old, stately house. In front of me, a deep blue lake surrounded by majestic trees. I was wearing a long cream-colored dress that the warm late summer wind caressed my skin. You were wearing a tuxedo and waiting for me in a Riva boat at the dock; I took off my high heels and went down a ladder to the lake. You took my hand and, as soon as we set off, in the blink of an eye, we were in St. Mark's Square, at the Venice Film Festival. Doesn't that seem incredible to you, George?”

Medieval cartographers, when they reached the edge of a map and no longer knew what to draw, would write: Hic sunt dracones. “Here be dragons.” At that time, the world was not a perfect sphere, but a finite board where, if you strayed too far from the coast, you risked falling off the precipice. The path had ended, beyond lay only the void, the fog, and sea beasts.

Three-year-old children plugged into a mobile phone screen to distract them (and not bother anyone), eight-year-old children who already carry a smart device in their pocket to which they dedicate hours, teenagers who have made the smartphone another appendage of their body, adults abducted by an infinite scroll watching short videos for hours that, to put it elegantly, offer content of dubious intellectualism. Most of us can identify with some of these profiles, images that have contributed to demonizing smartphones. But, are they really as harmful as they say? Is the problem the screens or the content? Is our brain prepared to respond to all the stimuli that come from the screen? Aarón Fernández del Olmo, a clinical neuropsychologist, doctor of psychology, and philosophy graduate, has thoroughly studied this issue. In his book "El cerebro hackeado" (Editorial Kailas), he proposes to break some myths about the consequences of using smartphones and to offer some tools for healthier use.

If you liked the burly and always expressionless guy at the door, you had the right to dive into the world of Blue velvet by David Lynch, or that other futuristic planet of Max Headroom. Heavily made-up girls, “a touch of shadow here, a touch of shadow there”, large triangular earrings, American football-style shoulder pads, and black miniskirts. Guys dressed in Closet or Privata, tight jeans at the bottom, and tiny Victoria sneakers, white or pastel-colored. Everyone smoking Camel, Winston, or Marlboro and drinking whisky with coke or vodka with lemon as if the world were about to end... (The gin and tonic boom was still a long way off.)

In the midst of the streaming era and omnipresent screens, a growing segment of youth is looking back. Vinyl records, cassettes, film cameras, or VHS tapes, formats that just a few years ago seemed doomed to disappear, are circulating again among young people as objects of cultural consumption and symbols of identity. Far from being a fleeting trend, the phenomenon reflects an increasingly complex relationship between the digital generation and the technology that dominates their daily lives.

The Art Explora Festival opened its doors this Wednesday at the Barcelona dock, in Port Vell, on its first stop in Catalonia. The event, which runs until April 6, offers free admission – with prior reservation to access the museum ship – and can be visited daily from 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM, with the last entry at 7:45 PM.

The Art Explora Festival opened its doors this Wednesday at the Barcelona dock, in Port Vell, for its first stop in Catalonia. The event, which will run until April 6, offers free admission – with prior reservation to access the museum ship – and can be visited daily from 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM, with the last entry at 7:45 PM.

One of the latest bombshells in fashion This has been the announcement of Zara's new collaborationThe global fast-fashion giant has brought on board designer John Galliano, one of the most singular figures in contemporary design, for a two-year period. It's a partnership that was difficult to foresee, but one that is profoundly revealing of the current moment we are living in as a society.

“I’m noticing it’s getting harder and harder for me to go out partying,” says Albert Thió Hortoneda, 26, from Barcelona. “You go into a club at two in the morning, you’ve paid 20 euros, and to get your money’s worth, you have to stay until six. This throws my sleep patterns off a bit,” he explains. He says that packaged, consumer-focused partying that lasts for hours on end doesn’t appeal to him. “I hadn’t really thought about it being a generational thing, but I do see that a lot of people around me are experiencing the same thing,” he points out. In fact, articles and videos with hashtags like "We've normalized not going out"where very young people speak openly about not going out partying in their 20s. What was once a stigma – having to tell friends not to include you in their plans – seems to have found its niche on TikTok with hashtags on well-being and self-care.

How does the son of Mallorcan farmers manage to walk the runway at New York Fashion Week and be considered John Galliano's successor? Why does this protégé of the fashion press end up thrown to the wolves? We asked ourselves these same questions in this very newspaper exactly eleven years ago in the wake of Call it a balance in the unbalance (2011). An epic story with a dramatic ending in which Regine Lettner delves, through the experiences of designer Miguel Adrover, into an industry capable of destroying myths as quickly as it builds them. This documentary was part of the first edition of Moritz Feed Doc, Barcelona's international film and fashion festival, which celebrates its tenth anniversary this year by, coincidentally, revisiting the fascinating and enigmatic figure of Adrover. On this occasion, it does so through The designer is dead (2025), a documentary by Gonzalo Hergueta focusing on the life and artistic trajectory of one of the most consistent and radical personalities in contemporary fashion. This Adrover is the same Adrover who, more than two decades ago, was already speaking about sustainability and multiculturalism, when these concepts were not yet widely understood. mainstreamThis is similar to how, a few months ago, he refused to dress Rosalía de Lux because the singer wasn't using her platform to denounce the Palestinian genocide. For Adrover, fashion should be understood not only as a cultural artifact but also as a political one.

The red carpet at this year's Oscars passed without incident or surprises. Hollywood, once again, did its traditional job of turning a blind eye to the world's problems and allowing us to forget for a few hours that the planet is falling apart. A missed opportunity to use such a powerful platform to stir consciences or, at least, slightly unsettle the established order.

Perhaps without realizing it, we spend half our lives surrounded by people with narcissistic behavior, people who are always able to get what they want thanks to their mastery of the art of persuasion, a skill that often makes them irresistible but especially manipulative. This is the profile discussed in his latest book, written in his characteristic irreverent yet precise and reflective style, by psychologist Víctor Amat, who, in The 10 laws to be fucking irresistible (Vergara) aims to give readers the tools to combat narcissists with their own weapons. Amat explains that the book stems from his professional experience as a professor of persuasion techniques for healthcare professionals and from the demands of patients who come to his practice complaining that they have encountered a narcissist at work or in their personal lives. His goal, he states, is for them to understand and apply persuasion in everyday life, but above all, "how to use it for good." And here he wants to differentiate "the narcissist from what would be a malicious narcissist": "I think we all have a touch of narcissism; therefore, the important thing is to distinguish the person's intention," he says. He asserts that the key is to learn from these people to protect ourselves and improve, and he sees persuasion as both a shield and a weapon. Because we have all been deceived by charming people at some point in our lives.

The Oscars, the most anticipated film event of the year, are also a fashion celebration thanks to the red carpet. Often criticized for being conservative, this year saw classic dresses, but also some of the latest trends showcased by major fashion houses.