As a person born in the 1980s, one of my concerns in recent years has been the stiff requirements for getting a home loan. Although in Spain many monthly mortgage payments are below current rental prices, securing a down payment and meeting the bank’s conditions are anything but easy. These struggles weigh on the shoulders of a generation already hit by precariousness, instability and unemployment.
I had wrongly assumed that the generation after mine would have even more housing trouble, and while it is true that Gen Z is not going to have it easy, data suggests that finding a home is not going to be one of their main concerns. The reasons? Lots of houses owned by baby boomers coupled with the low birth rate mean that there will be more and more available property in the future.
Since the times of ancient Greece, we have been able to detect illness from the smell of one’s breath. What sends out the alarm signals are chemicals called volatile organic compounds. Investigating their diagnostic potential could help detect, and treat, more diseases in the future.
As I read this article on our penchant for new translations, I thought of Stefan Zweig. His works recently entered the public domain in Spain, and it has led to a proliferation of new translations. Do we really need different versions of the same book? Why do so many countries, over time, retranslate the same classics over and over again?
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