Why is there any matter in the universe at all? New study sheds light

Subatomic particles abstract illustration (stock image).

Scientists at the University of Sussex have measured a property of the neutron -- a fundamental particle in the universe -- more precisely than ever before. Their research is part of an investigation into why there is matter left over in the universe, that is, why all the antimatter created in the Big Bang didn't just cancel out the matter.

The team -- which included the Science and Technology Facilities Council's (STFC) Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK, the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland, and a number of other institutions -- was looking into whether or not the neutron acts like an "electric compass." Neutrons are believed to be slightly asymmetrical in shape, being slightly positive at one end and slightly negative at the other -- a bit like the electrical equivalent of a bar magnet. This is the so-called "electric dipole moment" (EDM), and is what the team was looking for.

This is an important piece of the puzzle in the mystery of why matter remains in the Universe, because scientific theories about why there is matter left over also predict that neutrons have the "electric compass" property, to a greater or lesser extent. Measuring it then it helps scientists to get closer to the truth about why matter remains.

The team of physicists found that the neutron has a significantly smaller EDM than predicted by various theories about why matter remains in the universe; this makes these theories less likely to be correct, so they have to be altered, or new theories found. In fact it's been said in the literature that over the years, these EDM measurements, considered as a set, have probably disproved more theories than any other experiment in the history of physics. The results are reported today, Friday 28 February 2020, in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Professor Philip Harris, Head of the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences and leader of the EDM group at the University of Sussex, said:

"After more than two decades of work by researchers at the University of Sussex and elsewhere, a final result has emerged from an experiment designed to address one of the most profound problems in cosmology for the last fifty years: namely, the question of why the Universe contains so much more matter than antimatter, and, indeed, why it now contains any matter at all. Why didn't the antimatter cancel out all the matter? Why is there any matter left?

"The answer relates to a structural asymmetry that should appear in fundamental particles like neutrons. This is what we've been looking for. We've found that the "electric dipole moment" is smaller than previously believed. This helps us to rule out theories about why there is matter left over -- because the theories governing the two things are linked.

"We have set a new international standard for the sensitivity of this experiment. What we're searching for in the neutron -- the asymmetry which shows that it is positive at one end and negative at the other -- is incredibly tiny. Our experiment was able to measure this in such detail that if the asymmetry could be scaled up to the size of a football, then a football scaled up by the same amount would fill the visible Universe."

The experiment is an upgraded version of apparatus originally designed by researchers at the University of Sussex and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), and which has held the world sensitivity record continuously from 1999 until now.

Dr Maurits van der Grinten, from the neutron EDM group at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), said:

"The experiment combines various state of the art technologies that all need to perform simultaneously. We're pleased that the equipment, technology and expertise developed by scientists from RAL has contributed to the work to push the limit on this important parameter"

Dr Clark Griffith, Lecturer in Physics from the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Sussex, said:

"This experiment brings together techniques from atomic and low energy nuclear physics, including laser-based optical magnetometry and quantum-spin manipulation. By using these multi-disciplinary tools to measure the properties of the neutron extremely precisely, we are able to probe questions relevant to high-energy particle physics and the fundamental nature of the symmetries underlying the universe. "

50,000 measurements

Any electric dipole moment that a neutron may have is tiny, and so is extremely difficult to measure. Previous measurements by other researchers have borne this out. In particular, the team had to go to great lengths to keep the local magnetic field very constant during their latest measurement. For example, every truck that drove by on the road next to the institute disturbed the magnetic field on a scale that would have been significant for the experiment, so this effect had to be compensated for during the measurement.

Also, the number of neutrons observed needed to be large enough to provide a chance to measure the electric dipole moment. The measurements ran over a period of two years. So-called ultracold neutrons, that is, neutrons with a comparatively slow speed, were measured. Every 300 seconds, a bunch of more than 10,000 neutrons was directed to the experiment and examined in detail. The researchers measured a total of 50,000 such bunches.

A new international standard is set

The researchers' latest results supported and enhanced those of their predecessors: a new international standard has been set. The size of the EDM is still too small to measure with the instruments that have been used up until now, so some theories that attempted to explain the excess of matter have become less likely. The mystery therefore remains, for the time being.

The next, more precise, measurement is already being constructed at PSI. The PSI collaboration expects to start their next series of measurements by 2021.

Search for "new physics"

The new result was determined by a group of researchers at 18 institutes and universities in Europe and the USA on the basis of data collected at PSI's ultracold neutron source. The researchers collected measurement data there over a period of two years, evaluated it very carefully in two separate teams, and were then able to obtain a more accurate result than ever before.

The research project is part of the search for "new physics" that would go beyond the so-called Standard Model of Physics, which sets out the properties of all known particles. This is also a major goal of experiments at larger facilities such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN.

The techniques originally developed for the first EDM measurement in the 1950s led to world-changing developments such as atomic clocks and MRI scanners, and to this day it retains its huge and ongoing impact in the field of particle physics.

---

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Sussex. Original written by Anna Ford. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Why is there any matter in the universe at all? New study sheds light

Subatomic particles abstract illustration (stock image).

Scientists at the University of Sussex have measured a property of the neutron -- a fundamental particle in the universe -- more precisely than ever before. Their research is part of an investigation into why there is matter left over in the universe, that is, why all the antimatter created in the Big Bang didn't just cancel out the matter.

The team -- which included the Science and Technology Facilities Council's (STFC) Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK, the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland, and a number of other institutions -- was looking into whether or not the neutron acts like an "electric compass." Neutrons are believed to be slightly asymmetrical in shape, being slightly positive at one end and slightly negative at the other -- a bit like the electrical equivalent of a bar magnet. This is the so-called "electric dipole moment" (EDM), and is what the team was looking for.

This is an important piece of the puzzle in the mystery of why matter remains in the Universe, because scientific theories about why there is matter left over also predict that neutrons have the "electric compass" property, to a greater or lesser extent. Measuring it then it helps scientists to get closer to the truth about why matter remains.

The team of physicists found that the neutron has a significantly smaller EDM than predicted by various theories about why matter remains in the universe; this makes these theories less likely to be correct, so they have to be altered, or new theories found. In fact it's been said in the literature that over the years, these EDM measurements, considered as a set, have probably disproved more theories than any other experiment in the history of physics. The results are reported today, Friday 28 February 2020, in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Professor Philip Harris, Head of the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences and leader of the EDM group at the University of Sussex, said:

"After more than two decades of work by researchers at the University of Sussex and elsewhere, a final result has emerged from an experiment designed to address one of the most profound problems in cosmology for the last fifty years: namely, the question of why the Universe contains so much more matter than antimatter, and, indeed, why it now contains any matter at all. Why didn't the antimatter cancel out all the matter? Why is there any matter left?

"The answer relates to a structural asymmetry that should appear in fundamental particles like neutrons. This is what we've been looking for. We've found that the "electric dipole moment" is smaller than previously believed. This helps us to rule out theories about why there is matter left over -- because the theories governing the two things are linked.

"We have set a new international standard for the sensitivity of this experiment. What we're searching for in the neutron -- the asymmetry which shows that it is positive at one end and negative at the other -- is incredibly tiny. Our experiment was able to measure this in such detail that if the asymmetry could be scaled up to the size of a football, then a football scaled up by the same amount would fill the visible Universe."

The experiment is an upgraded version of apparatus originally designed by researchers at the University of Sussex and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), and which has held the world sensitivity record continuously from 1999 until now.

Dr Maurits van der Grinten, from the neutron EDM group at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), said:

"The experiment combines various state of the art technologies that all need to perform simultaneously. We're pleased that the equipment, technology and expertise developed by scientists from RAL has contributed to the work to push the limit on this important parameter"

Dr Clark Griffith, Lecturer in Physics from the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Sussex, said:

"This experiment brings together techniques from atomic and low energy nuclear physics, including laser-based optical magnetometry and quantum-spin manipulation. By using these multi-disciplinary tools to measure the properties of the neutron extremely precisely, we are able to probe questions relevant to high-energy particle physics and the fundamental nature of the symmetries underlying the universe. "

50,000 measurements

Any electric dipole moment that a neutron may have is tiny, and so is extremely difficult to measure. Previous measurements by other researchers have borne this out. In particular, the team had to go to great lengths to keep the local magnetic field very constant during their latest measurement. For example, every truck that drove by on the road next to the institute disturbed the magnetic field on a scale that would have been significant for the experiment, so this effect had to be compensated for during the measurement.

Also, the number of neutrons observed needed to be large enough to provide a chance to measure the electric dipole moment. The measurements ran over a period of two years. So-called ultracold neutrons, that is, neutrons with a comparatively slow speed, were measured. Every 300 seconds, a bunch of more than 10,000 neutrons was directed to the experiment and examined in detail. The researchers measured a total of 50,000 such bunches.

A new international standard is set

The researchers' latest results supported and enhanced those of their predecessors: a new international standard has been set. The size of the EDM is still too small to measure with the instruments that have been used up until now, so some theories that attempted to explain the excess of matter have become less likely. The mystery therefore remains, for the time being.

The next, more precise, measurement is already being constructed at PSI. The PSI collaboration expects to start their next series of measurements by 2021.

Search for "new physics"

The new result was determined by a group of researchers at 18 institutes and universities in Europe and the USA on the basis of data collected at PSI's ultracold neutron source. The researchers collected measurement data there over a period of two years, evaluated it very carefully in two separate teams, and were then able to obtain a more accurate result than ever before.

The research project is part of the search for "new physics" that would go beyond the so-called Standard Model of Physics, which sets out the properties of all known particles. This is also a major goal of experiments at larger facilities such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN.

The techniques originally developed for the first EDM measurement in the 1950s led to world-changing developments such as atomic clocks and MRI scanners, and to this day it retains its huge and ongoing impact in the field of particle physics.

---

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Sussex. Original written by Anna Ford. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Vitamin D at High Dose Can Worsen MS, Early Study Says

High-dose vitamin D supplements appear to aggravate inflammation and myelin loss in the brain and spinal cord, and worsen the disability associated with multiple sclerosis (MS), a study in a mouse disease model reported.

Excessive use of vitamin D causes calcium levels to spike, which directly increase the inflammatory state of immune cells and their capacity to infiltrate the central nervous system (CNS; the brain and spinal cord), the researchers observed.

Supplements given in moderation, however, may help to ease disease symptoms.

The findings were presented at the Americas Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ACTRIMS) Forum 2020, held Feb. 27–29 in Florida, in the poster “High Dose Vitamin D Worsens Experimental CNS Autoimmune Disease By Raising T Cell-excitatory Calcium.” The presenter was Sebastian Torke, PhD, with the Institute of Neuropathology, University Medical Center in Göttingen, Germany.

A large body of data suggests that low vitamin D levels raise a person’s risk of developing MS. But whether or not vitamin supplements should be given to people who already have the disease is under debate.

In general, MS patients have relatively low levels of vitamin D. Based on studies showing an association between low levels of this vitamin and a higher risk of relapses and earlier disability, doctors often recommend oral vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) supplements to their patients.

Yet, it is unclear whether such supplements offer therapeutic benefits to MS patients, and if they do, what doses should be advised. While relatively low doses of vitamin D appear to be safe, high doses are likely toxic and potentially harmful.

Researchers set out to model the consequences of this common practice by investigating the effects of long-term vitamin D supplements given to mice.

They fed mice a diet containing either a low concentration (less than 5 IU of vitamin D3/kg of food), a standard amount (1,500 IU/kg), or a high dose (75,000 IU/kg) of vitamin D3 for 15 weeks (about three and a half months).

These three doses were chosen to generate serum levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] — the molecule measured in a vitamin D blood test — reflective of what is typically seen in patients with vitamin D deficiency (less than 30 nmol/l), in those taking modest supplements and achieving normal vitamin D levels (100 nmol/l), and in those with disproportionally high supplements (250 nmol/l).

All three diets contained identical calcium (1%) and phosphate (0.7%) concentrations.

Researchers then induced MS-like disease in the mice and followed their clinical symptoms, CNS inflammation and damage, and immune cell behavior.

Results showed that, compared to MS mice not given supplements, a moderate dose of vitamin D eased disease severity, which was linked to an expansion of regulatory T-cells — immune cells that help to keep immune responses in check.

The opposite, however, happened in mice fed a high-dose vitamin D diet.

“High-dose, long-term vitamin D supplementation lead to much worse disease in these mice,” Torke said.

The animals had excessively high levels of the vitamin in the blood (above 200 nmol/l), and developed “fulminant” disease with severe and persistent disability. This was associated with massive CNS inflammation and the infiltration of activated  T helper 1 (Th1) and Th17 cells — immune cells that can cause inflammation and autoimmune disease — as well as demyelination (loss of myelin), a hallmark of MS.

Researchers decided that calcium is likely at fault for what they considered an “unexpected outcome.”

High-dose vitamin D caused calcium levels to rise to excessive amounts (hypercalcemia) throughout the body, triggering the activation, proliferation, and inflammatory behavior of  T-cells.

Supporting these findings, the researchers also found that exposing mice or human T-cells in vitro (in the lab) to various concentrations of calcium (equivalent to those found in vitamin D-fed mice) increased the entry of calcium into cells, and triggered the activation of pro-inflammatory pathways.

“It is not vitamin D that is bad, but too much vitamin D leads to increased calcium [levels] that promote T-cell proliferation and activation,” Torke said.

Calcium also enhances the ability of T-cells to cross the blood-brain barrier — a highly selective membrane that regulates which substances or cells carried in blood can enter the brain or spinal cord — reflecting a greater ability to infiltrate the CNS.

Inducing hypercalcemia in mice was enough to activate T-cells, confirming that this effect can also occur in a living organism (in vivo).

“These findings highlight excessive vitamin D supplementation and resulting hypercalcemia as novel risk factors promoting worsening of CNS demyelinating disease,” Torke said.

“Our data caution that in light of the currently limited information on a direct beneficial effect of vitamin D in MS, MS patients may be at danger of experiencing untoward immunological and/or clinical effects when vitamin D is supplemented excessively,” Torke concluded.

Is the Universe Expanding at an Accelerated Rate?

A new study challenges the cosmological model and suggests that the universe is not expanding at an accelerated rate.

The standard model of cosmology assumes that the universe is isotropic with no preferred direction and no preferred frame of reference; that is, we are not special and our position in the universe is not from a privileged vantage point. Within this framework, observational data led us to the conclusion that 70% of the universe is expanding at an accelerated rate, and this accelerating force is due to an unknown form of energy known as ‘dark energy’. This so-called ‘dark energy’ is now thought to be due to quantum fluctuations of the vacuum energy.

However, a new study by a team of European scientists explored these ideas further. They wanted to see what would happen when they measure the deceleration parameter – the measurement of cosmic acceleration – from our own ‘special’ frame of reference.

The expansion of the universe is measured in terms of the Hubble constant, which is currently measured by two different methods. One method looks at the early universe through the observation of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and the other method looks at the local universe through the light emitted by galaxies, Cepheid variables and/or Type 1a supernovae. It was the latter method that led to the conclusion that the universe was expanding at an accelerating rate, resulting in astrophysicists Adam Reiss, Brian Paul Schmidt and Saul Perlmutter receiving the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.

However, in each case, the measurements are taken in the framework of the cosmological model which assumes that the universe is isotropic and homogeneous. This assumption is contradicted by the inhomogeneous distribution of galaxies and the lack of correlations on large angular scales, with the only confirmation coming from studies of the early universe through observed temperature fluctuations in the CMB radiation. It has therefore been suggested that this isotropic and homogeneous universe only exists at the larger scales, although this has yet to be confirmed.

The team therefore decided to see what happens when they remove this assumption from their analysis and measure the expansion in our own ‘heliocentric’ frame of reference.

“In the absence of any evidence of convergence to the CMB rest frame, this assumption is unjustified since it is very possible that the observed bulk flow stretches out to much larger scales.”
– Jacques Colin, Roya Mohayaee, Mohammed Rameez and Subir Sarkar

Utilising the latest extended sample size of supernovae data from the Joint Lightcurve Analysis catalogue, they were able to extract the redshifts for 740 Type 1a supernovae. To convert from a heliocentric frame of reference to a CMB frame of reference, the observed redshifts are generally corrected for ‘peculiar’ velocities – that is, velocities relative to a standard frame of rest. Therefore, to obtain the redshifts in our local frame of reference – the heliocentric frame – these corrections had to be undone.

Intriguingly, their results showed that the acceleration is a relatively local effect with a significant dipole component directed along the direction we are moving with respect to the CMB. This dipole component, in alignment with the CMB dipole moment, rejects the assumption of isotropy. It could therefore be that the cosmic acceleration inferred from supernovae observations is not due to dark energy and instead due to us being tilted observers located in a bulk flow.

RSF in perspective

Everything in the universe – including the universe itself – is in a continuous dance of expansion, contraction and rotation. This is true from the smallest system, to fundamental particles, to stars and galaxies, and right up to the universe itself. Depending on our perspective, the different systems will appear as coherent systems within systems or as areas of apparent randomness. So, although the universe is expanding, it could appear to be accelerating or decelerating depending on the scale of the observation and the vantage point of the observer.

How many breaths we have.

On average, a person at rest takes 

about 16 breaths per minute. This 

means we breathe about 960 breaths 

an hour, 23,040 breaths a day, 8,409,600 

a year. Unless we get a lot of exercise. 

The person who lives to 80 will take about 

672,768,000 breaths in a lifetime.

ESO observations reveal black holes' breakfast at the cosmic dawn

This image shows one of the gas halos newly observed with the MUSE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope superimposed to an older image of a galaxy merger obtained with ALMA. The large-scale halo of hydrogen gas is shown in blue, while the ALMA data is shown in orange.

Credit: ESO/Farina et al.; ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Decarli et al.

Astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope have observed reservoirs of cool gas around some of the earliest galaxies in the Universe. These gas halos are the perfect food for supermassive black holes at the centre of these galaxies, which are now seen as they were over 12.5 billion years ago. This food storage might explain how these cosmic monsters grew so fast during a period in the Universe's history known as the Cosmic Dawn.

"We are now able to demonstrate, for the first time, that primordial galaxies do have enough food in their environments to sustain both the growth of supermassive black holes and vigorous star formation," says Emanuele Paolo Farina, of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, who led the research published today in The Astrophysical Journal. "This adds a fundamental piece to the puzzle that astronomers are building to picture how cosmic structures formed more than 12 billion years ago."

Astronomers have wondered how supermassive black holes were able to grow so large so early on in the history of the Universe. "The presence of these early monsters, with masses several billion times the mass of our Sun, is a big mystery," says Farina, who is also affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching bei München. It means that the first black holes, which might have formed from the collapse of the first stars, must have grown very fast. But, until now, astronomers had not spotted 'black hole food' -- gas and dust -- in large enough quantities to explain this rapid growth.

To complicate matters further, previous observations with ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, revealed a lot of dust and gas in these early galaxies that fuelled rapid star formation. These ALMA observations suggested that there could be little left over to feed a black hole.

To solve this mystery, Farina and his colleagues used the MUSE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope in the Chilean Atacama Desert to study quasars -- extremely bright objects powered by supermassive black holes which lie at the centre of massive galaxies. The study surveyed 31 quasars that are seen as they were more than 12.5 billion years ago, at a time when the Universe was still an infant, only about 870 million years old. This is one of the largest samples of quasars from this early on in the history of the Universe to be surveyed.

The astronomers found that 12 quasars were surrounded by enormous gas reservoirs: halos of cool, dense hydrogen gas extending 100,000 light years from the central black holes and with billions of times the mass of the Sun. The team, from Germany, the US, Italy and Chile, also found that these gas halos were tightly bound to the galaxies, providing the perfect food source to sustain both the growth of supermassive black holes and vigorous star formation.

The research was possible thanks to the superb sensitivity of MUSE, the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, on ESO's VLT, which Farina says was "a game changer" in the study of quasars. "In a matter of a few hours per target, we were able to delve into the surroundings of the most massive and voracious black holes present in the young Universe," he adds. While quasars are bright, the gas reservoirs around them are much harder to observe. But MUSE could detect the faint glow of the hydrogen gas in the halos, allowing astronomers to finally reveal the food stashes that power supermassive black holes in the early Universe.

In the future, ESO's Extremely Large Telescope will help scientists reveal even more details about galaxies and supermassive black holes in the first couple of billion years after the Big Bang. "With the power of the ELT, we will be able to delve even deeper into the early Universe to find many more such gas nebulae," Farina concludes.

Story Source:

Materials provided by ESO. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

ESO observations reveal black holes' breakfast at the cosmic dawn

This image shows one of the gas halos newly observed with the MUSE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope superimposed to an older image of a galaxy merger obtained with ALMA. The large-scale halo of hydrogen gas is shown in blue, while the ALMA data is shown in orange.

Credit: ESO/Farina et al.; ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Decarli et al.

Astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope have observed reservoirs of cool gas around some of the earliest galaxies in the Universe. These gas halos are the perfect food for supermassive black holes at the centre of these galaxies, which are now seen as they were over 12.5 billion years ago. This food storage might explain how these cosmic monsters grew so fast during a period in the Universe's history known as the Cosmic Dawn.

"We are now able to demonstrate, for the first time, that primordial galaxies do have enough food in their environments to sustain both the growth of supermassive black holes and vigorous star formation," says Emanuele Paolo Farina, of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, who led the research published today in The Astrophysical Journal. "This adds a fundamental piece to the puzzle that astronomers are building to picture how cosmic structures formed more than 12 billion years ago."

Astronomers have wondered how supermassive black holes were able to grow so large so early on in the history of the Universe. "The presence of these early monsters, with masses several billion times the mass of our Sun, is a big mystery," says Farina, who is also affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching bei München. It means that the first black holes, which might have formed from the collapse of the first stars, must have grown very fast. But, until now, astronomers had not spotted 'black hole food' -- gas and dust -- in large enough quantities to explain this rapid growth.

To complicate matters further, previous observations with ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, revealed a lot of dust and gas in these early galaxies that fuelled rapid star formation. These ALMA observations suggested that there could be little left over to feed a black hole.

To solve this mystery, Farina and his colleagues used the MUSE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope in the Chilean Atacama Desert to study quasars -- extremely bright objects powered by supermassive black holes which lie at the centre of massive galaxies. The study surveyed 31 quasars that are seen as they were more than 12.5 billion years ago, at a time when the Universe was still an infant, only about 870 million years old. This is one of the largest samples of quasars from this early on in the history of the Universe to be surveyed.

The astronomers found that 12 quasars were surrounded by enormous gas reservoirs: halos of cool, dense hydrogen gas extending 100,000 light years from the central black holes and with billions of times the mass of the Sun. The team, from Germany, the US, Italy and Chile, also found that these gas halos were tightly bound to the galaxies, providing the perfect food source to sustain both the growth of supermassive black holes and vigorous star formation.

The research was possible thanks to the superb sensitivity of MUSE, the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, on ESO's VLT, which Farina says was "a game changer" in the study of quasars. "In a matter of a few hours per target, we were able to delve into the surroundings of the most massive and voracious black holes present in the young Universe," he adds. While quasars are bright, the gas reservoirs around them are much harder to observe. But MUSE could detect the faint glow of the hydrogen gas in the halos, allowing astronomers to finally reveal the food stashes that power supermassive black holes in the early Universe.

In the future, ESO's Extremely Large Telescope will help scientists reveal even more details about galaxies and supermassive black holes in the first couple of billion years after the Big Bang. "With the power of the ELT, we will be able to delve even deeper into the early Universe to find many more such gas nebulae," Farina concludes.

Story Source:

Materials provided by ESO. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

'Mental rigidity' at root of intense political partisanship on both left and right, study finds

'Mental rigidity' at root of intense political partisanship on both left and right, study finds

People who identify more intensely with a political tribe or ideology share an underlying psychological trait: low levels of cognitive flexibility, according to a new study.

This "mental rigidity" makes it harder for people to change their ways of thinking or adapt to new environments, say researchers. Importantly, mental rigidity was found in those with the most fervent beliefs and affiliations on both the left and right of the political divide.

The study of over 700 US citizens, conducted by scientists from the University of Cambridge, is the largest -- and first for over 20 years -- to investigate whether the more politically "extreme" have a certain "type of mind" through the use of objective psychological testing.

The findings suggest that the basic mental processes governing our ability to switch between different concepts and tasks are linked to the intensity with which we attach ourselves to political doctrines -- regardless of the ideology.

"Relative to political moderates, participants who indicated extreme attachment to either the Democratic or Republican Party exhibited mental rigidity on multiple objective neuropsychological tests," said Dr Leor Zmigrod, a Cambridge Gates Scholar and lead author of the study, now published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.

"While political animosity often appears to be driven by emotion, we find that the way people unconsciously process neutral stimuli seems to play an important role in how they process ideological arguments."

"Those with lower cognitive flexibility see the world in more black-and-white terms, and struggle with new and different perspectives. The more inflexible mind may be especially susceptible to the clarity, certainty, and safety frequently offered by strong loyalty to collective ideologies," she said.

The research is the latest in a series of studies from Zmigrod and her Cambridge colleagues, Dr Jason Rentfrow and Professor Trevor Robbins, on the relationship between ideology and cognitive flexibility.

Their previous work over the last 18 months has suggested that mental rigidity is linked to more extreme attitudes with regards to religiosity, nationalism, and a willingness to endorse violence and sacrifice one's life for an ideological group.

For the latest study, the Cambridge team recruited 743 men and women of various ages and educational backgrounds from across the political spectrum through the Amazon Mechanical Turk platform.

Participants completed three psychological tests online: a word association game, a card-sorting test -- where colours, shapes and numbers are matched according to shifting rules -- and an exercise in which participants have a two-minute window to imagine possible uses for everyday objects.

"These are established and standardized cognitive tests which quantify how well individuals adapt to changing environments and how flexibly their minds process words and concepts," said Zmigrod.

The participants were also asked to score their feelings towards various divisive social and economic issues -- from abortion and marriage to welfare -- and the extent of "overlap" between their personal identity and the US Republican and Democrat parties.

Zmigrod and colleagues found that "partisan extremity" -- the intensity of participants' attachment to their favoured political party -- was a strong predictor of rigidity in all three cognitive tests. They also found that self-described Independents displayed greater cognitive flexibility compared to both Democrats and Republicans.

Other cognitive traits, such as originality or fluency of thought, were not related to heightened political partisanship, which researchers argue suggests the unique contribution of cognitive inflexibility.

"In the context of today's highly divided politics, it is important we work to understand the psychological underpinnings of dogmatism and strict ideological adherence," said Zmigrod.

"The aim of this research is not to draw false equivalences between different, and sometimes opposing, ideologies. We want to highlight the common psychological factors that shape how people come to hold extreme views and identities," said Zmigrod.

"Past studies have shown that it is possible to cultivate cognitive flexibility through training and education. Our findings raise the question of whether heightening our cognitive flexibility might help build more tolerant societies, and even develop antidotes to radicalization."

"While the conservatism and liberalism of our beliefs may at times divide us, our capacity to think about the world flexibly and adaptively can unite us," she added.

---

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Cambridge. The original story is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

DNA data offers scientific look at 500 years of extramarital sex in Western Europe

Dioxynucliec Acid

Dioxynucliec Acid

These days it's easy to resolve questions about paternity with over-the-counter test kits. Now, researchers have put DNA evidence together with long-term genealogical data to explore similar questions of biological fatherhood on a broad scale among people living in parts of Western Europe over the last 500 years.

The findings reported in Current Biology on November 14 yielded some surprises. While the number of so-called extra-pair paternity (EPP) events overall was (not surprisingly) fairly low, their frequency varied considerably among people depending on their circumstances. Specifically, evidence of EPP events turned up much more often in people of lower socioeconomic status who lived in densely populated cities in the 19th century.

"Of course, extra-pair paternity, especially due to adultery, is a popular topic in gossip, jokes, TV series, and literature," said Maarten Larmuseau of KU Leuven and Histories, Belgium. "But scientific knowledge on this phenomenon is still highly limited, especially regarding the past.

"Our research shows that the chance of having extra-pair paternity events in your family history really depends on the social circumstances of your ancestors. If they lived in cities and were of the lower socioeconomic classes, the chances that there were EPP events in your family history are much higher than if they were farmers."

Evolutionarily speaking, it's clear that remaining faithful to one's partner isn't always the most advantageous strategy. Males may benefit from straying by siring extra offspring; females may benefit by mating with superior males. But in human societies over time, how often has EPP really happened?

In the new study, Larmuseau's team took the first broad look at this question to find that social context really matters. Their study covered a time period of several centuries during which there were dramatic changes in the human social environment, including the rapid urbanization that accompanied the Industrial Revolution in 19th century Western Europe. To estimate historical EPP rates among married couples, they identified 513 pairs of contemporary adult males living in Belgium and the Netherlands who, based on genealogical evidence, shared a common paternal ancestor and therefore -- barring an EPP event -- should have carried the same Y chromosome.

The evidence showed no significant difference in EPP rates between countries despite key religious differences, they report. But they varied widely with socioeconomic status and population density. The EPP rate was much lower among farmers and more well-to-do craftsmen and merchants (about 1%) than among lower class laborers and weavers (about 4%).

EPP rates also rose with population density. Putting the two together, the researchers report that the estimated EPP rates for the families varied by more than one order of magnitude, from about 0.5% among the middle to high classes and farmers living in the most sparsely populated towns to almost 6% for the low socioeconomic classes living in the most densely populated cities.

The researchers say the findings support evolutionary theories suggesting that individual incentives and opportunities for seeking or preventing extra-pair mating should depend on the social context. They also debunk the notion that EPP rates in Western society are generally high, they say, noting that the evidence puts average rates at around 1%.

Larmuseau says an interdisciplinary perspective will be important to understanding why certain factors like population density and socio-economic status have had such a strong influence on the EPP rate. "This is highly relevant because the causes of historical EPP events are hidden and diverse," he said.

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Karma pays everything

In life it's Karma that
goes from one to another.
Karma is what you sow,
so you reap.

So when you do bad to
other person, the same
will return to you at some
time.