​The expansion of the universe is just a mirage ● Carved images in a French cave may be the oldest example of Neanderthal art ● Snakes first evolved as underground animals

The expansion of the universe would be only a mirage

The widespread idea of ​​an ever-expanding universe appears to be completely false, Lucas Lombreiser, a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Geneva, says on his behalf. A somewhat controversial statement, as it contradicts everything that has been said since 1931, the year American astronomer Edwin Hubble declared that the universe is constantly expanding.

In his study, published in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity, Lombreiser argues that scientists have been wrong all along, and that what they thought was the expansion of the universe was actually just a mirage. It all starts with the Hubble observations mentioned earlier.

More precisely, the American researcher discovered that there is a relationship between the distances to different galaxies and the shift to the red end of the visual spectrum. In Romanian, the greater the distance to the galaxy, the more its light is shifted to the red part of the spectrum. Later hypotheses even said that the expansion was not constant, but that it was accelerating. There have even been hypotheses that claim that this will lead to the end of the universe.

This accelerated expansion was calculated based on a concept introduced by Einstein in 1917, namely the cosmological constant, or lambda constant. Since the calculations often gave conflicting data and different values ​​of this supposed constant, which is not a constant at all, researchers tried to even suggest the existence of new physical forces or new particles. But Lombrizer believes that this is not the case.

In fact, the Swiss physicist claims, what scientists have called the expansion of the universe is actually the evolution of the mass of protons and electrons over time. In Lambreiser’s picture, it seems that the Lambda constant fluctuates precisely because the mass of the particles fluctuates. Thus, all related problems disappear when looking at things from this point of view.

As other scholars have acknowledged, Lambreiser’s approach is atypical. Basically, he goes back to Einstein’s idea of ​​the static nature of the universe, set forth more than a century ago. But one way or another, his explanation provides answers to many unknowns in the field of cosmology. The biggest drawback, however, is that his claims cannot yet be proven, and at least until we have the technology to make such observations, they remain only at the hypothesis stage.

Carvings from a French cave are possibly the earliest examples of Neanderthal art

Now that you’ve familiarized yourself with the lambda constant and other astronomical terms, we’ll take you to a slightly easier field, prehistoric archaeology. And here we recall a study recently published in the journal PLOS One, which discusses possible evidence for the existence of the earliest Neanderthal art forms. It is in the cave of La Roche-Cotard, located in the Loire Valley.

The cave in question was discovered as early as 1846, and incisions on its walls were noticed shortly after the excavation of the sedimentary material, in 1912. For some reason, only in 2008 they were first talked about as human traces. And the reality is that only a small fraction of the incisions and markings on cave walls can be considered as such, most of them made by animals, especially cave bears.

In 2013, it was also said that the tracks are evidence of Neanderthal symbolism and the ability of representatives of this species of man to create art.

So what is new about the current research since it has been discussed before? The first novelty will be the one related to dating. The age of punched or hand-drawn fingerprints was first estimated to be around 57,000 years old. The new dating shows that this is actually the period when the cave closed naturally, and the incisions would be much older, perhaps 75,000 years.

The second innovation concerns data interpretation. In particular, the authors of the study claim that the pattern of cuts is not random. They would even follow certain guidelines. It is true that these are only lines and dots, but we must not lose sight of the fact that even our ancestors of the species Homo sapiens did not reach the stage where they could make zoomorphic or anthropomorphic images.

This would make the La Roche Cotaire cave carvings the oldest evidence of Neanderthal art in the world, even older than the ocher representations from the Maltravisto, Ardales and La Pacienga caves in northern Spain, all dated to around 65,000 years old.

It is true that the association with the term art, at least in the modern sense, may seem inappropriate. In fact, it is only about lines, points and perhaps geometric shapes. Instead, the symbolism of the Neanderthal and the fact that he was capable of abstract thought has long been a proven fact, even with evidence from Romania.

Originally, snakes evolved as underground animals

This may sound strange, but this is what researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences claim in a large genetic study published in the journal Cell. In short, Chinese paleontologists and paleogeneticists claim to have sequenced the genomes of no fewer than 14 snakes from 12 different species. On their basis, as well as after comparative analysis with the genomes of other animal species, scientists were able to identify genes that indicate the adaptation of snakes to underground life, and then their re-adaptation to life on the surface.

If the Chinese scientists are correct, snakes appeared at the dawn of the Cretaceous period, about 118 million years ago, and then underwent a significant diversification after a cataclysmic event 66 million years ago that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

During the period when they coexisted with dinosaurs, snakes were adapted to live underground, a fact confirmed by genes that indicate a reduction in the number of photoreceptors. In particular, their vision was adapted to environments with very little light. Later, when coming to the surface, the recessive genes responsible for better vision were activated again.

A similar situation was found in the case of genes that regulated hearing or those that coordinated the ability to detect the heat of victims in the infrared spectrum. Basically, there was the blocking of certain genes, the reactivation of some of them, or simply the appearance of some that allow adaptation to a certain environment. Such changes, according to Chinese experts, are characteristic of animals that live underground. And, finally, they are found in all kinds of snakes, both poisonous and constricting.

In summary, snakes, like mammals, were originally animals that preferred a subterranean environment. It’s a good thing that no one was looking for earthworms then, because look how your heart stopped.

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