Fundamental forces are different depending on the region of space!

EarthSky

Data collected from a quasar 13 billion light-years away suggest a discrepancy between measurements of fundamental forces on Earth and those in that region.

Scientists have observed over time the existence of four fundamental forces: electromagnetism, gravity, strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force. A study that gathered data from a number of previous studies concluded that electromagnetism has values ​​that vary depending on the region of the universe in which it is measured, and this has a number of implications for how we understand the universe.

Starting from these differences in the values ​​of electromagnetism, scientists have theorized that they have a kind of north and south poles, which show the direction in which these variations can be mapped. "The new study seems to support this idea that there could be a directionality in the Universe, which is really very strange. So the universe may not be isotropic in its physical laws to be the same, statistically, in all directions, ”explains James Webb, a researcher at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

"But, in fact, there could be a certain direction or preferred direction in the Universe where the laws of physics change, but not in a perpendicular direction. In other words, the Universe has, in a certain sense, a dipole structure ", explains the researcher.

The data collected in this study call into question the theories and explanatory models that scientists currently use to explain how the universe evolves and various phenomena occur. "Our standard model of cosmology is based on an isotropic universe, one that is statistically the same in all directions. This standard model is built on Einstein's theory of gravity, which explicitly assumes the constancy of the laws of nature, "adds Webb.


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The study was published in Science Advances.

Christopher Columbus vs Ponce de León in search of the Fountain of Youth ( The real goal of every expedition )

The Fountain of Youth, 1546 painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder. photo: wikipedia.org

On  April 2, 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León and his crew became the first recorded Europeans to set eyes on Florida. Legend holds that they made this discovery while searching for the Fountain of Youth, a magical water source supposedly capable of reversing the aging process and curing sickness. A closer look, however, reveals that the fountain likely provided little to no motivation for their voyage. 

17th century Spanish engraving (colored) of Juan Ponce de León photo: wikipedia.org

In fact, no surviving documents from the time, including letters from Ponce de León himself, ever mention such a fountain. Only later did Spanish and U.S. writers connect the two, thereby turning Ponce de León into a poster boy for gullibility.

Tales of sacred, restorative waters existed well before the birth of Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León around 1474. Alexander the Great, for example, was said to have come across a healing “river of paradise” in the fourth century B.C., and similar legends cropped up in such disparate locations as the Canary Islands, Japan, Polynesia and England. 

The Kingdom of Macedon in 336 BC. photo: wikipedia.org

During the Middle Ages, some Europeans even believed in the Mythical king Prester John, whose kingdom allegedly contained a fountain of youth and a river of gold. “You could trace that up until today,” said Ryan K. Smith, a history professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. “People are still touting miracle cures and miracle waters.”

A map of Prester John's kingdom as Ethiopia photo: wikipedia.org

Spanish sources asserted that the Taino Indians of the Caribbean also spoke of a magic fountain and rejuvenating river that existed somewhere north of Cuba. 

Spanish Territories in North America, including Mexico, Cuba, California, and Florida. photo: alamy.com

These rumors conceivably reached the ears of Ponce de León, who is thought to have accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World in 1493. After helping to brutally crush a Taino rebellion on Hispaniola in 1504, Ponce de León was granted a provincial governorship and hundreds of acres of land, where he used forced Indian labor to raise crops and livestock. In 1508 he received royal permission to colonize San Juan Bautista (now Puerto Rico). He became the island’s first governor a year later, but was soon pushed out in a power struggle with Christopher Columbus’ son Diego.

The voyages of Christopher Columbus photo: wikipedia.org

Having remained in the good graces of King Ferdinand, Ponce de León received a contract in 1512 to explore and settle an island called Bimini. Nowhere in either this contract or a follow-up contract was the Fountain of Youth mentioned. By contrast, specific instructions were given for subjugating the Indians and divvying up any gold found. 

Portrait of a Man, Said to be Christopher Columbus photo: wikipedia.org

Although he may have claimed to know certain “secrets,” Ponce de León likewise never brought up the fountain in his known correspondence with Ferdinand. “What Ponce is really looking for is islands that will become part of what he hopes will be a profitable new governorship,” said J. Michael Francis, a history professor at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. “From everything I can gather, he was not at all interested or believed that he would find some kind of miraculous spring or lake or body of water.” 

The Bahamas with Bimini highlighted on the west side photo: wikipedia.org

At least one historian suggests that perhaps Ferdinand, who had recently married a woman 35 years his junior, told Ponce de León to keep his eye out for it. But other experts dispute this.

Either way, Ponce de León set sail in March 1513 with three ships. According to early historians, he anchored off the eastern coast of Florida on April 2 and came ashore a day later, choosing the name “La Florida” in part because it was the Easter season (Pascua Florida in Spanish).

Ponce de León then journeyed down through the Florida Keys and up the western coast, where he skirmished with Indians, before beginning a roundabout journey back to Puerto Rico. Along the way he purportedly discovered the Gulf Stream, which proved to be the fastest route for sailing back to Europe.

Benjamin Franklin's map of the Gulf Stream photo: wikipedia.org

Eight years later, Ponce de León returned to Florida’s southwestern coast in an attempt to establish a colony, but he was mortally wounded by an Indian arrow. 

Pope Adrian VI - Wikipedia

Just before leaving, he sent letters to his new king, Charles V, and to the future Pope Adrian VI. Once again, the explorer made no mention of the Fountain of Youth, focusing instead on his desire to settle the land, spread Christianity and discover whether Florida was an island or peninsula. No log of either voyage has survived, and no archaeological footprint has ever been uncovered.

Emperor Charles V spoke German to his horse Financial Times

Nonetheless, historians began linking Ponce de León with the Fountain of Youth not long after his death. In 1535 Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés accused Ponce de León of seeking the fountain in order to cure his sexual impotence. “He was being discredited as an idiot and weakling,” Smith explained. “This is machismo culture in Spain at the height of the Counter-Reformation.” The accusation is almost certainly untrue, Smith added, since Ponce de León fathered several children and was under 40 years old at the time of his first expedition.

Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, who lived with Indians in Florida for many years after surviving a shipwreck, also derided Ponce de León in his 1575 memoir, saying it was a cause for merriment that he sought out the Fountain of Youth. One of the next authors to weigh in was Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, the Spanish king’s chief historian of the Indies. In 1601 he penned a detailed and widely read account of Ponce de León’s first voyage. 

Hernando D'Escalante Fontaneda tribute by simon behnejad - Xavier Cortada Participatory Art Projects

Although Herrera only referred to the Fountain of Youth in passing, writing that it turned “old men to boys,” he helped solidify it in the public’s imagination. “They are really more entertainment than attempts to write a true history,” Francis said of these works.

The Fountain of Youth legend was now alive and well. It did not gain much traction in the United States, however, until the Spanish ceded Florida in 1819. Famous writers of the time such as Washington Irving then began portraying Ponce de León as hapless and vain. 

A portrait of Washington Irving photo: wikipedia.org

Artists also got in on the act, including Thomas Moran, who painted an oversize canvas of Ponce de León meeting with Indians. By the early 20th century, a statue of the explorer had been placed in the central plaza of Florida’s oldest city, St. Augustine, and a nearby tourist attraction pretended to be the actual Fountain of Youth. To this day, tens of thousands of visitors come every year to sample the sulfur-smelling well water. “It does not taste good,” said Smith, who worked there for four days in college. “Imagine what you would think the Fountain of Youth would taste like. It doesn’t taste like that.” Meanwhile, some grade school textbooks continue to present Ponce de León’s search for the fountain as historical fact.

Thomas Moran - Wikipedia

Route of Juan Ponce de León 1513 photo: pinterest

In 2013, Ponce de León was back in the spotlight. In celebration of the 500th anniversary of his landing, reenactments took place in St. Augustine and Melbourne Beach, Florida, both of which claim to be the site where he first dropped anchor. 

Columbus's second voyage photo: wikipedia.org

There was also a Catholic mass in St. Augustine featuring a replica of the 15th-century font used to baptize him in Spain and a mass in Melbourne Beach, along with the unveiling of more statues and a commemorative stamp.

What would Ponce de León make of all this attention, not all of it positive? “My take on that is that no publicity is bad publicity,” Smith said. “He’s a household name, and maybe in the end that’s what he was looking for.”



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It was created the most complex map of the Milky Way . It shows that our galaxy is much more extensive than previously thought

Milky Way  (Foto:spaceandintelligence.com) 

Researchers say they underestimated the number of stars existing within our galaxy.

European Space Agency released the most detailed map to date of the Milky Way. The digital representation depicting the positions of no less than 1.142 billion stars, is the first product of Gaia space observatory, launched three years ago. Among the identified cosmic objects there were about 400 million stars unknown, which means that our galaxy is much more extensive than previously thought in the moment.

,, This map released today the extraordinary density of the stars studied by Gaia indicates and confirms that space observatory has collected valuable information in its first year of activity. Although current data are preliminary, we will do our best to put them to the community of astronomers to use them as soon as possible, "says Timo Prussia, a researcher involved in the project Gaia.

Map presented by the European Space Agency experts is the result of the cumulative effort of not less than 450 researchers. Comparing observations with the help of Gaia observer to those shown in the Hipparcos and Tycho catalogs-2, scientists have been able to estimate distances and movements carried about 2 million stars. The result: the most comprehensive picture of the movement of the stars obtained so far.

Map Milky Way obtained by European astronomers (Photo: sciencealert.com/ESA/Gaia/DPAC)

Gaia Space Observatory is located about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth and is equipped with a 1 miliiard pixels capable of measuring the diameter of a human hair from a distance of 1,000 kilometers. Vehicle mission will last nearly 5 years and aims at mapping the Milky Way, which astronomers assume that accommodates no less than 100 billion stars.

Although experts are confident that the Centre will not be able to analyze these cosmic objects over 5 years, they say, for now, the result is very good, given that Gaia has begun to map the proper since July 2014.


,, It appears we underestimated the number of stars. We think there are about 2-2.5 billion, "said van Leeuwen Floor, researcher at Cambridge University.

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• The universe: Reading the future from the distant past

Story source: 

 

The above post is reprinted from materials provided by sciencealert.com . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

The discovery that changes everything about the human brain "Cartographers of the Brain"

Updated: 28/04/2020

The new map will help scientists better understand the new unknown areas of the human brain.

A team of researchers created the most detailed map of the human brain, skull radiographs using more than 100 people, to identify nearly 100 new regions of the cerebral cortex.

The new map defines 180 cortical areas, which helps scientists to understand better how we think, talk or feel, giving them new information about conditions such as autism, schizophrenia and dementia.

,, The brain is like a computer that can support any operating system and can run any software, "said neurologist David Van Essen, the University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Washington.

,, In fact, the operation mode is related to the structure of the brain. If you want to know what the brain can do, you should know as organized and connected, '' added the American scientist.

To build the map, the researchers used information from the Human Connectome project, a study was conducted long-term and consisted in the creation of over 1,200 radiographs of young adults with a custom MRI.

World Science Festival Cartographers of the Brain

Information in this group, the researchers examined radiographs of 210 people, men and women. The radiographs were recorded measurements of the participants' cerebral cortex, the area that controls memory, thinking, speaking and consciousness.

Volunteers brain was scanned at rest and when the participant carry light loads, to be able to measure brain activity effectively.

By using an algorithm specially developed by researchers at Oxford University in Britain, scientists were able to identify distinct parts of the brain.

To ensure that the results are correct, scientists compared them with those obtained from investigations made on another group of 210 people.

Over 180 new regions were discovered in each of the two hemispheres of the brain. 83 have been identified in previous research, and other 97 new zones have been identified in the new study.

,, There is a clear distinction between new parts discovered. In fact, the transition is gradual, indicating a mixture  and coordination between different sensory modalities and cognitive domains, "said the scientists.

Neurology:  poststroke cognitive impairment

Some regions are more understandable than others. One of the regions 55b is activated when we hear a story being related to language. Other researchers, however, are new and hard to understand, because some areas are related to many functions of the brain, which mean it takes a long time until specialists can understand the whole map of the brain.

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Source;  Science Alert