Did the Earth’s core stop and go in the other direction: a shocking discovery by Chinese scientists

Research by Chinese scientists indicates that the rotation of the Earth’s inner core has stopped, compared to the mantle, as early as 2009. Thousands of kilometers below the surface of our planet, something strange may be happening. Prevailing scientific theories say that the Earth’s core rotates faster than the core envelope and the rest of the planet, but in the same direction, in which the Earth rotates. However, Chinese scientists claim that new data indicate that this is no longer the case.

“We were very surprised,” said Yi Yang and Xiaodong Song, seismologists at Peking University, whose research was published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Mysteries of the Earth’s interior

The results of their research could clarify many mysteries of the Earth’s interior, including which part of the inner core is responsible for maintaining the planetary magnetic field and affects the speed of the Earth’s rotation, writes the journal “Nature”.

Scientists discovered the inner core in 1936, after studying how seismic waves from earthquakes travel through the planet. Changes in the speed of the waves revealed that the planet’s core, which is about 7,000 kilometers wide, consists of a solid core, made mostly of iron, inside a shell of liquid iron and other elements. As iron from the outer core crystallizes on the surface of the inner core, it changes the density of the outer liquid, causing turbulent motions that maintain Earth’s magnetic field.

The Earth’s magnetic field

The liquid outer core essentially separates the inner core 2,400 kilometers wide from the rest of the planet, so the inner core can spin at its own pace. In 1996, Song and other scientists began studying earthquakes observed in the same region over three decades, whose energy was detected by the same monitoring station thousands of kilometers away. Since the 1960s, scientists say, the travel time of seismic waves from those earthquakes has changed, indicating that the inner core is rotating faster than the planet’s mantle, the layer just above the outer core.
Later studies specified the extent of this “superrotation” of the inner core, concluding that it rotates faster than the mantle by about one-tenth of a degree per year.

The inner core stopped moving relative to the mantle

However, not all scientists agree with that thesis. Other papers suggest that superrotation occurs mainly in different periods, such as the early 2000s, and argue that it is not a continuous, stable phenomenon. Some scientists even argue that superrotation does not exist and that the differences in earthquake travel times are caused by physical changes on the surface of the inner core.

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In June of last year, John Vidal and Wei Wang of the University of Southern California published a scientific paper that disrupted established studies in this area. Using data on seismic waves generated by US nuclear tests in 1969 and 1971, they concluded that between those years, Earth’s inner core “subrotated,” or rotated more slowly than the mantle. Only after 1971, as they claim, did it accelerate and begin to superrotate.

Influence on the length of the day and the magnetic field

Song and Yang conclude that the inner core can oscillate with periods of about 70 years – changing rotation directions every 35 years. The scientists conclude that these oscillations could explain the known 60- to 70-year variations in the length of Earth’s days and the behavior of the planet’s magnetic field.
Still, many questions remain, such as how to reconcile the slow pace of change Yang and Song report with some of the more rapid changes observed by other scientists. The only way out is to wait for more earthquakes to occur, and to study the data about them.

“The long history of continuous seismic recording is critical to tracking the motion of the planet’s heart,”

Yang and Song say.

Seismologist John Vidal, who has also dealt with this phenomenon, states that he thinks we are on the threshold of a solution.

“But I’m still not sure about that.” We will have to wait,”.

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The Archeological Hoax of the Century: The Lie That Managed to Fool Thousands of Scientists for 40 Years

The so-called “Piltdown Man” is an archaeological discovery of the remains of a skull and jaw excavated in 1912 from a grave in Piltdown, a village in East Sussex. They were presented as a “missing link” – a transition between man and ape and as a fossil previously unknown to science. The world was then amazed by this new discovery.

A part of the skull, several teeth and jaws were discovered. The remains were given the Latin name – Eoanthropus dawsoni.
The only problem? It was about fraud! There was no “missing link”. The Piltdown Man wasn’t real.

The archaeological hoax of the century

Scientists immediately questioned this discovery. It has been discussed and debated for decades, but no one has been able to neither dispute nor confirm it with certainty.

The finding thus remained controversial until 1953, when, thanks to new technology, it was definitively declared a hoax! It turned out to be made of the lower jaw of an orangutan and the skull of a modern man, writes Allday.com.

The hoax is believed to have been masterminded by the “discoverer” of the Piltdown Man – Charles Dawson, an amateur geologist and lawyer who was among the members of the expedition that “discovered” the fossil. It was he who gathered several distinguished scientists to study the remains he found. He died in 1916, long before the findings were disputed.

The “Piltdown Hoax” is probably the most famous of the archaeological hoaxes. The discovery has been debated for over 40 years and, although Donson was the prime suspect, his responsibility has never been proven with certainty.

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A few other possible creators of the fraud were suggested, but to this day it is not known who organized everything.

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Blood iron levels explain why people age at different rates

It was discovered that people will not age at the same pace if they have an uncontrolled level of iron in the blood that automatically affects the development of diseases typical of a certain age.

The level of iron in the blood could be the key to slow down aging, shows a gene study that worked by scientists with University of Edinburgh and with Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Germany. Scientists identified genes associated with aging, which could help and give an answer to the question – why people old different speed, or why some are getting old, and some have been young and vital long.

The key to longer life could be a normal level of iron in the blood

An international study, published in the journal Nature Communications, using genetic data from more than a million people, suggests that maintaining normal blood iron levels could be the key to slower, better aging and longer life. The findings could accelerate the development of drugs to reduce age-related diseases, extend healthy years of life and increase the chances of living to a disease-free old age, the researchers said. The scientists focused on three measures associated with biological aging – life span, years of disease-free life (health life expectancy), and longevity.

Biological aging – the rate at which our bodies lose vitality over time varies between people and causes the world’s deadliest diseases, including heart disease, dementia and cancer. The researchers gathered information from three public datasets to enable analysis in unprecedented detail. The combined data set was equivalent to studying 1.75 million lifetimes, or more than 60,000 extremely long-lived people.

Iron levels in the blood suppress Parkinson’s and liver disease

A team of scientists has discovered that genes involved in the metabolism of iron in the blood are partly responsible for a healthy long life. The researchers remind us that diet affects the level of iron in the blood and that abnormally high or low levels of iron are associated with some health conditions typical of a certain age, i.e. life span, such as Parkinson’s disease, liver disease and a decline in the body’s ability to fight against infection in old age. In this regard, they state that formulating a drug that could mimic the impact of genetic variation on iron metabolism could be a step in overcoming some of the effects of aging in the future.

The goal of scientists – how to improve health during aging

“These findings are very important because they strongly suggest that high levels of iron in the blood reduce the number of ‘healthy’ years of life. Keeping these levels under control can prevent conditions and damage to the body that come with age. We believe that our discoveries about iron metabolism would could also explain why very high levels of iron-rich red meat in the diet are associated with age-related conditions such as heart disease”,

emphasized Dr. Paul Timmers from the Usher Institute at the University of Edinburgh.

Dr. Joris Deelen from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging in Germany pointed out that the goal of scientists is to discover how aging is regulated and to find ways to improve health during aging.

“Ten regions of the genome that we have discovered, which are related to life span, health and longevity are the best candidates for further studies”,

emphasized Dr. Deelen.

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How do social networks prevent us from falling into deep boredom and why do scientists think this is a problem?

Checking social networks can prevent us from falling into a state of deep boredom, which according to scientists is a great pity.

We all get bored from time to time, and while we are waiting for the bus at the station or in line in front of the counter, it is only superficial. However, these initial feelings can deepen over time and grow into something else, according to scientists.

“Deep boredom may sound like an extremely negative concept, but it can actually be extremely productive if people are given the chance to think undisturbed and develop,” explains sociologist Timothy Hill of the University of Bath in the UK.

Deep boredom and creativity

To examine this nearly 100-year-old concept, Hill and his colleagues explored the lives of 15 people who were given paid time off or worked from home during the coronavirus pandemic. Age, occupation and education varied between the participants, and all were given pre-designed interviews aimed at probing their feelings.

Based on the data they received, it was observed that boredom occurred often, but that for those who experienced it more deeply, it caused a feeling of restlessness and emptiness. All this resulted in repeated attempts to fill that gap through hobbies such as carpentry, cooking or cycling.

However, the main problem in this process is checking social networks, whose content can alleviate superficial boredom and thus prevent falling into deeper feelings, thus also discovering hidden talents and passions. Other studies have also suggested that boredom and mind wandering are key foundations for creativity, which is why so many good ideas come to us while in the shower.

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Pyramid in Helinikon: Scientists have not been able to find out when it was built for any purpose

January 12, 2023

The two pyramids in Helinikon were first discovered in the 2nd century BC. mentioned by the Greek geographer Pausanias. Today there is only one, and what particularly attracts the attention of researchers is that it is still unknown how old it is, nor what its purpose was.

Usually when we talk about pyramids we think of those in Egypt, Mexico or Peru, although their presence has been recorded in other parts of the world. One of them is also found in Europe, more precisely in Argolis and what is even more interesting is not a recent discovery at all because the Greek geographer and traveler Pausanias wrote about the existence of not one, but two pyramids in Helinikon as early as the 2nd century BC.

Namely, in his Description of Greece, he talks about two buildings with a pyramidal structure, one of which is located twenty kilometers southwest of the one that still exists today. His opinion was that soldiers who died in the legendary battle fought in Argos were most likely buried there:

“On the road from Argos to Epidaurus, on the right, there is a building similar to a pyramid, on which Argive shields are carved in relief. Here the battle for the throne took place between Praetos and Akrisius; and the duel, they say, ended in a draw and a reconciliation, because neither neither could win. A common grave was built for those who fell, since they were fellow citizens and relatives.”

Modern researchers doubt this hypothesis, primarily because it is a small structure of about 7 m x 9 m with walls rising at an angle of 60 degrees and whose height does not exceed 3.5 m. The first excavations were undertaken by the German archaeologist Theodor Wiegand at the beginning of the 20th century, and his work was continued by researchers from the American School of Archeology in Athens and concluded that the building was a kind of watchtower.

Controversies related to estimated age

More recent research began in the 1990s under the direction of Greek archaeologist Ioannis Lirikas, who estimates that there are at least 20 other similar structures in Greece. He then discovered in their interior pottery from different periods, lamps, glasses, bowls, plates and large pitos – egg-shaped vessels used to store grains and oil. All the findings were so mixed that it was not possible to determine their age.

In addition, the analyzes that Lirikas and his team conducted inside and around the building using the thermoluminescence technique failed to convince other scientists of the accuracy of the data. First of all, the inner blocks were selected for sampling, seven of which were dated to the period between 2500 and 2000 BC, while the estimated age of the two ceramic vessels was between 3000 and 660 BC. This is considered an extremely wide range that suggests that is perhaps even older than the Great Pyramids, but it is also impossible to say with certainty when exactly it was built.

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Archaeologists uncover the secrets of legendary dwarf peoples: From Taiwan to Siberia

January 6, 2023

Archaeologists have confirmed one of the legends of Taiwan: the island was once inhabited by dark-skinned and short people. Scientists say that traces of such peoples can be found everywhere – from Siberia to Great Britain.

An unexpected find

From generation to generation in Taiwan, the legend about the dark-skinned dwarf people was passed down. Its members lived high in the mountains and spoke an incomprehensible language, and then mysteriously disappeared.
Until recently, there was no material evidence of this myth. At the same time, scientists doubted that dark-skinned people could once have lived on the island. The Taiwanese natives were believed to be Austronesians, who came there from China. They moved to new territories about five thousand years ago, and then moved throughout Oceania.
This year, however, a joint expedition of archaeologists from Australia, Vietnam and Japan found an unusual tomb of a woman in the cave complex of Xiaoma, on the east coast of the island. The deceased was buried in a sitting position, with her knees firmly pressed against her head, that is, in a manner that is not in accordance with the tradition of that region.
The results of the radiocarbon analysis showed that the remains of that woman are about six thousand years old, but the scientists were most surprised by her dimensions.

“The length of the femurs was 35 centimeters. The skull was much smaller than usual. Based on those proportions, anthropologists concluded that the woman was no taller than 140 centimeters”,

said the head of the expedition, University of Guam professor Mike Carson.

Archaeologists immediately realized that they were representatives of a legendary people of short stature, and further analyzes of the remains convinced them of this.

“The skull’s DNA testifies that it is genetically close to African specimens from a similar period. Its size and shape are reminiscent of the Pygmies who lived in the territory of modern South Africa,”

the research results stated.

Mike Carson’s team is convinced that the woman from Siaoma Cave is a member of the Negritos, the indigenous people of Asia who came there from Africa. Members of that group are many peoples in the Philippines, some natives of Australia and the Andaman Islands. All of them are characterized by short stature (from 140 to 150 centimeters) and dark skin.
Now, when the Taiwanese legend has been confirmed, scientists have an equally important task – to clarify why the Negritos disappeared from the island. For now, they believe that they were suppressed by the Austronesians who settled there.

They are not that small after all

Experts state that stories about dwarf peoples are characteristic of almost all regions of the world. In Europe, for example, stories about gnomes are known, whose prototype, according to many mythology lovers, are the Picts – a tribe that inhabited the northeast of Scotland in the first centuries of our era.
Their character was greatly popularized by the poet Robert Louis Stevenson. In his ballad “Heather Ale” (“Heather’s Honey”) the Picts are represented as short people living in underground caves. There are also those who believe that it was the Picts that served John Tolkien as the basis for the creation of Hobbits – dwarf humanoid beings that inhabit Middle Earth. The author himself, however, denied such conclusions in numerous accompanying notes for his legendarium.

The history of the Picts is for the most part riddled with questions. “There are two points of view regarding their origin. According to the first, the Picts are the indigenous inhabitants of Britain, who came there in the early Bronze Age. Based on that, they could be considered the first representatives of Indo-Europeans in Europe. According to another point of view, which is more realistic, they were a Celtic tribe that separated from their relatives quite early,” says historian Klim Zhukov.
The main source for the culture of the Picts is the numerous stones with inscriptions that they left in the entire territory they inhabited. Their language has not been deciphered to this day, so it is impossible to read those inscriptions carved into the stone.

However, the memories of their enemies were preserved. Until the 5th century, the dwarf people actively waged war against the Roman Empire. In the works of ancient historians and politicians, memories of “people of short stature” can be found.
The revelations of recent years, however, completely deny this fact. In 2016, archaeologists found the skeleton of a man in the village of Rosmark in the north of Scotland, who was determined to have died between 430 and 630 AD.
“In that period, the region was inhabited by the Picts.” The man whose skeleton was found had a very solid build and was quite tall for that time – 167 centimeters,” said a participant in the expedition, University of Leicester professor Simon Gunn.
Three years later, in another Scottish settlement, Muir Ord, scientists excavated a large necropolis. All the tombs date back to the 7th century, but the main discovery was that the average height of the deceased was between 160 and 170 centimeters. Based on that, it could be said that the legendary ones were not as small as it seems to us.

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The Supercritical State: What Lies Beneath the Atmospheres of Two Neighboring Planets in the Solar System

December 26, 2022

Two planets orbiting a tiny star 218 light-years away appear to be unlike any other in the Solar System. Exoplanets Kepler-138c and Kepler-138d have a radius about 1.5 times that of Earth and appear to consist of thick, steamy atmospheres and incredibly deep oceans.

“We used to think that planets slightly larger than Earth were really big balls of metal and rock, like scaled-down versions of our planet, and that’s why we called them super-Earths,”

said astronomer Björn Benneke of the University of Montreal.

“However, these two planets, Kepler-138c and d, appear to be quite different from that concept: a large fraction of their volume is probably water.” “This is the first time we have observed planets that we can confidently say are water worlds of sorts,” he added.

How the composition of exoplanets is determined

Determining what planets outside the solar system, i.e. exoplanets, are made of usually requires a lot of “detective” work. They are very far away and very faint compared to the light of the stars they orbit. It’s very difficult to get direct pictures, and if we do take them, we don’t see a lot of detail in them.
Therefore, the composition of an exoplanet is usually determined on the basis of its density, which is calculated using two parameters – the drop in the brightness of the star during the transit of the planet and the radial velocity of the star, i.e. the so-called oscillation, writes “Science Alert”.

The amount of light blocked during transit indicates the exoplanet’s size, and the star’s radial velocity indicates its mass. Namely, the radial velocity is induced by the gravitational effect of the exoplanet on the star, so the mass of the planet can be determined through this. And once you have the size and mass of the object, you can calculate its density.

What is the density of exoplanets

Gaseous worlds, such as Jupiter, will have a relatively low density, and rocky, metal-rich worlds will have a higher density. At 5.5 grams per cubic centimeter, Earth is the densest planet in the Solar System; Saturn has the lowest density – 0.69 grams per cubic centimeter.
Transit data show that Kepler-138c and Kepler-138d have radii that are 1.51 times that of Earth, and their gravitational pull is twice as massive as our planet.
This means that their density is about 3.6 grams per cubic centimeter; which is between the rocky and gaseous worlds in density. Jupiter’s moon Europa has a similar density (3 grams per cubic centimeter), which is thought to hide a huge ocean under its icy crust.

“Imagine larger versions of Europa or Enceladus, the water-rich moons that orbit Jupiter and Saturn, but are much closer to their star.” “Instead of an icy surface, Kepler-138c and d is surrounded by water vapor,”

said astrophysicist Carolyn Piaulet of the University of Montreal.

Supercritical fluid

According to the expert’s model, more than 50 percent of the volume of these exoplanets is water, which extends to a depth of about 2,000 kilometers. Earth’s oceans, by comparison, have an average depth of 3.7 kilometers.
Kepler-138c and Kepler-138d are much closer to their star than Earth is to the Sun, so they are much hotter. One orbits the red dwarf in 13 days, and the other in 23 days. This means that the oceans and atmospheres there look completely different than on Earth.

“The temperature in the atmospheres of Kepler-138c and Kepler-138d is probably above the boiling point of water, so there seems to be a very dense atmosphere made of steam.” Beneath such an atmosphere is potentially liquid water at high pressure or even water in a second phase that occurs at high pressures, called a supercritical fluid.”

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Huge and significant success of scientists: Nuclear fusion could soon change the world, we are one step away from an “infinite source of energy”

December 24, 2022

For the first time in history, American scientists at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California have successfully produced a nuclear fusion reaction that resulted in the production of a net gain in energy, that is, more energy than they invested.
This was confirmed to CNN by a source familiar with the project, and the portal states that the US Department of Energy is expected to officially announce this breakthrough in science on Tuesday. The result of the experiment would be a huge step in the decades-long quest to unleash an infinite source of clean energy that could help end dependence on fossil fuels.

Fusion and fission

For decades, researchers have tried to recreate nuclear fusion, replicating the energy that powers the Sun. Namely, nuclear fusion is a process that replicates the same energy that powers the Sun. It happens when several atomic nuclei join together, forming one heavier nucleus. This process generates a huge amount of energy (depending on the mass of the nuclei involved in it) as heat. In contrast, nuclear fission is the process of splitting a larger atom into two or more smaller ones. It’s the kind of energy that powers nuclear reactors around the world today. As with fusion, the heat created by splitting atoms is also used to generate energy.

Join us LIVE tomorrow at 10 a.m. ET / 7 a.m. PT for a special announcement and press conference regarding a MAJOR scientific breakthrough. Remarks will be given by @ENERGY leaders @SecGranholm, @NNSANews’ @NNSAHruby and #LLNL Director Kim Budil. Tune in: https://t.co/H2Lwto2naD pic.twitter.com/XdugB3UhEz

— Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (@Livermore_Lab) December 12, 2022

A glass of deuterium to power the house

Nuclear fusion does not carry the same safety risks, and the materials used to power it have a significantly shorter radioactive half-life than fission.

Scientists around the world have studied nuclear fusion for decades in hopes of recreating it with a new source that provides boundless energy without the carbon and nuclear waste made by current nuclear reactors. Fusion projects mainly use the elements deuterium and tritium, both isotopes of hydrogen.

Unlike coal, you only need a small amount of hydrogen, which is the most abundant in the universe. Hydrogen is found in water, so the things that generate this energy are wildly unlimited and clean – Julio Friedman, chief scientist of “Carbon Direct” and former chief energy technologist of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, told CNN.

How could nuclear fusion turn on the lights?

There are two main ways of generating nuclear fusion, but both have the same result. The fusion of two atoms creates a huge amount of heat, which is the key to energy production. That heat can be used to heat water, create steam, and turn a turbine to produce power – much like nuclear fission generates power.

The big challenge in “taming” fusion energy is keeping it going long enough to power power grids and heating systems around the globe. A successful American breakthrough on that front is a big deal, but it’s still far less than what’s needed to generate enough energy to run one power plant, let alone tens of thousands of them.

It is about what is needed to boil 10 kettles of water. To turn it into a power plant, we need to create a larger energy gain, significantly larger – Jeremy Chittenden, co-director of King’s College London’s Center for Inertial Fusion Studies, told CNN.

Next steps

Scientists and experts now need to figure out how to produce much more energy than nuclear fusion on a much larger scale. At the same time, they need to figure out how to reduce the cost of nuclear fusion so that it can be used commercially.

Scientists will also need to harvest the energy produced by fusion and transfer it to the power grid as electricity. It will take years and possibly decades before fusion can produce unlimited amounts of clean energy, while scientists are in a race against time in the fight against climate change.

This will not meaningfully contribute to the reduction of harmful gases in the next 20-30 years. This is the difference between lighting a match and building a gas turbine – said Friedman.

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Do you know why we twitch before falling asleep?

December 23, 2022

You snuggled into bed after a hard day and began to drift off to sleep…

However, you suddenly wince because you feel like you’ve started to fall. What causes this phenomenon?
This question is one of the most frequently asked on google.com, so all the curious can find out the answer here.

The unusual sudden movement is related to a phenomenon called the hypnagogic state, which is a transitional period between waking and sleep. Accordingly, the twitch is called a hypnagogic twitch.

It is about myoclonus, that is, fast, involuntary muscle movements, writes “Independent”. As you drift off to sleep, two different brain systems balance their roles to bring you into the unconscious state. One of them is the reticular activating system (RAS). This network of cells is located under the cerebral cortex (cortex) and helps maintain alertness.

The second is the ventrolateral preoptic nucleus, located in the lower part of the brain, which controls sleep. Scientists believe that these two systems fight for supremacy during falling asleep. At that moment, the level of the serotonin transmitter also drops so that all the major muscles in the body can rest. However, it does not affect the smallest muscles, such as those around the eyes or in the joints, as a result of which the whole body can twitch, writes “DNews”.

According to other theories, it is an evolutionary atavism – it is a system that made the monkeys safe when they fell asleep in the trees. According to the BBC, hypnagogic twitches are most common in children, but most people experience them. However, people are usually not aware of them because they are too deeply asleep at the time of their occurrence.

Unlike the rapid eye movements that occur during REM sleep, this type of twitching does not reflect dream visions.

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Why do some of us look young and some look much older?

December 22, 2022

The results of detailed research by American scientists on the process of biological aging of people showed a radical difference between their biological and chronological pace of aging.
Some people age three times faster than their calendar peers who are bypassed by the merciless ravages of time because they have excellent genes or because it is influenced by the environment.

Scientists who participated in the research of 954 thirty-eight-year-olds from the same New Zealand city, during the research took into account 18 biomarkers to establish the speed at which their organisms age.

Among other things, blood cholesterol level, heart muscle health, lung function, state of capillaries in the back of the eye, telomere length, body weight, kidney function, gum health…

Biomarkers were measured in volunteers at the age of 26, 32, and 38, which enabled scientists to precisely determine the rate at which their bodies age.

According to the data published in the professional journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it was shown that the biological age of the research participants varied between 28 and 61 years.

“The intention of the scientists is to conduct the same research among the elderly population, but if we want to prevent diseases that develop with regard to age, we must focus on studying the biological aging process of younger people.

“Aging increases the risk of developing various diseases, including malignant ones, and we are doing this to try to prevent the simultaneous development of several diseases in old age, and the next step is to find out what affects the pace of aging,”

said Prof. Terrie Moffitt from Duke University in the US.

Most of the research participants were found to be compatible when it came to their chronological and biological age. In individuals, the body, that is, the organism, aged three times faster in relation to their chronological age, and in some – time seemed to stand still.

“If we knew more about the biological aging process, we could treat people more fairly” of the same chronological age, says Moffitt, explaining that for some people, the time to retire at a certain age is actually too early because they are still in full force. Although it is still early to draw concrete conclusions, the research will help in testing methods to slow down the aging process.

“If we really want to find a way to slow down the aging process in order to prevent the development of a number of diseases in old age, we will have to conduct research on younger people. The results of the research give us hope that medicine will be able to slow down aging and enable people to live healthier and more active lives “,

concludes Moffitt.

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Scientists believe that all blue-eyed people have a common ancestor and are relatives

December 21, 2022

It is estimated that between 20 and 40 percent of Europeans have blue eyes, but the exact reason for blue eyes is not yet known. Scientists believe that it is a genetic mutation and that the gene survived because people with that eye color were considered more physically attractive, so they had more opportunities to reproduce.
Eye color is determined by the amount of pigment in the iris of the eye. A lot of pigment means brown eyes, less pigment means green eyes, and little or no pigment means blue eyes.

As many as 16 genes determine eye color, but the two main ones are “HERC2” and “OCA2”, with “HERC2” acting as a switch that activates “OCA2”, which then activates the proteins that produce pigments.

If one of these two genes mutates and stops performing its function, the chain of reactions is interrupted and the proteins do not create pigments. And the result is blue eyes.

Everyone has two of each type of gene in their body, one from their father and one from their mother. If one parent has the mutated “OCA2” gene, and the other all “normal”, the child will also have brown eyes.
If both parents have mutated “OCA2”, there is a 25 percent chance that the child will have blue eyes. In theory, a hidden mutated “OCA2” could be passed down through the family for generations without anyone having blue eyes.

Research conducted at the University of Copenhagen looked at the DNA of blue-eyed people and found that 99.9 of them had a mutation in the “OCA2” gene.

Because of this, scientists believe that all blue-eyed people come from a common ancestor, which means that they are, in fact, relatives.

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Leonardo da Vinci: Humanist, Scientist, Naturalist

November 16, 2022

Leonardo Da Vinci is usually thought of primarily as an artist, but he was also an important humanist, scientist, and naturalist in the Renaissance. There is no evidence that Leonardo Da Vinci was an atheist, but he should be a role model for all of us in how to approach scientific and artistic problems from a naturalistic, skeptical perspective. He is also the reason why atheists should pay more attention to the connections between art and philosophy or ideology.

Leonardo believed that a good artist must also be a good scientist in order to best understand and describe nature. The humanistic, natural, and scientific aspects of Leonardo’s life and work are not always clear because he was the original Renaissance man: Leonardo’s art, scientific research, technological inventiveness, and humanistic philosophy were bound together.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s life and work

Leonardo Da Vinci was born in the village of Vinci in Tuscany, Italy on April 15, 1452. His skill and ability to evoke so much emotion with a few simple lines is almost unparalleled in the history of art. Although people may realize that he is an important artist, they do not realize how important he is as an early skeptic, naturalist, materialist and scientist.
As with other Renaissance artists, Leonardo Vinci’s works were primarily religious.

This is only to be expected because the Catholic Church was the largest, wealthiest institution of its age. He commissioned the most northern art and architecture, so any talented artist would work primarily in a religious context. However, not all religious artists convey the same messages, and not all religious art is exclusively religious.

Mona Lisa/The virgin of the Rocks(sometimes The Madonna of the Rocks)

The art of Renaissance artists like Leonardo is not the same as medieval religious art. Leonardo emphasized the humanity of human beings, using Christian figures and mythology to convey secular, humanistic ideas. Christianity cannot be separated from his work, but neither can humanism.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s Science & Naturalism

The origins of science can be traced back millennia, but it can be argued that the origins of modern science are in the Renaissance. Two characteristics of the Renaissance factor in modern science: a rebellion against religious and political restrictions on knowledge and a return to ancient Greek philosophy – which includes empirical, scientific exploration of nature. Renaissance figures such as Leonardo Da Vinci were explicit in their reliance on empiricism rather than faith, a willingness to study nature to gain knowledge rather than relying on tradition or dogma.

Leonardo Da Vinci demonstrated this attitude through careful exploration of the natural world. He didn’t just wonder how birds fly, for example, he undertook systematic studies of birds in flight – and then realized it and tried to apply it in the hope that humans would be able to fly too. Leonardo also studied how the eye sees in order to apply this knowledge to improve his artistic creations.

Driven by the belief that nature always takes the shortest path, he developed the early theorems of inertia, action/reaction, and force. None were as developed as the famous Descartes and Newton, but they show their involvement in science, as well as the degree to which they placed empirical data and science above faith and discovery. This is why Leonardo was such a strong skeptic, casting doubt on the popular pseudosciences of his time, especially astrology.

Leonardo Da Vinci and Renaissance Humanism

As one of the central figures of Renaissance Humanism, the central focus of all Leonardo da Vinci’s art and science was the human being. A focus on human problems rather than otherworldly problems led Renaissance figures such as Leonardo to spend more time on work that would benefit people in their daily lives rather than the extraneous interests of the Church.

The focus of the Renaissance on humanity was the spread of interest in Greek and Roman philosophy, literature and historiography, all of which provided a stark contrast to what was produced under the direction of the Medieval Christian Church. Renaissance Italians felt themselves to be inheritors of Roman culture – a legacy they were determined to study and understand. Naturally, the study led to admiration and imitation.

We have no direct evidence that Leonardo Da Vinci himself was obsessed with or tried to imitate ancient Roman culture, but the key to Renaissance humanism for us today is more its spirit than its content. We have to compare Humanism with medieval piety and scholasticism against which Humanism was considered a breath of fresh air. Renaissance Humanism was a revolt – sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit – against the other-holiness of medieval Christianity. Humanists turned away from a religious preoccupation with personal immorality, focusing instead on how to enjoy, use, and improve this life for the people who live it.

Renaissance humanists did not just write about new ideas, they also lived their ideas.

The medieval ideal was an ascetic monk, but the Renaissance gave us the idea of a Renaissance man: A man who lives in the world and as much as he hears as many people can learn as many different characteristics of the world as possible not only for the sake of esoteric knowledge, but to better improve human life here and now.

The anti-clerical and anti-ecclesiastical leanings of the humanists were a direct consequence of their reading of ancient authors who did not care for gods, did not believe in any gods, or believed in gods that were far and away from anything humanists were familiar with. Renaissance Humanism was a revolution in thought and feeling that left no part of society, not even the highest level of Christianity, untouched.

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