History (and sometimes, unfortunately, current events) shows us just how easily national borders can change, but we still like to think that they are permanent fixtures. These photos of different national borders around the world show you how both friendly and hostile nations like to fence off their turf.

Borders will often say much about countries' relationships. The borders between friendly nations, especially those in the European Union's Schengen zone, can seem almost non-existent, marked by no more than a line or a road sign. Other borders are delineated by natural markers like rivers, or by man-made markers, like guard posts and demilitarized zones.
1, Zipline Connects Spain And Portugal Border

The Portugal–Spain border is the international boundary between Portugal and Spain. Referred to as "la Raya" in Spanish and "A Raia" in Portuguese (the stripe), the current demarcation is almost identical to that defined in 1297 by the Treaty of Alcañices. It is one of the oldest borders in the world. The Portugal–Spain border is 1,214 km (754 miles) long and considered the longest uninterrupted border within the European Union.











The border is not defined for 18 km (11 miles) between the Caia river and Ribeira de Cuncos, because of the disputed status of Olivenza, which has been disputed between the two countries for two hundred years.
A microstate existed previously on the border called Couto Misto.

2 USA And Mexico Border

The Mexico–United States border is an international border separating Mexico and the United States, extending from the Pacific Ocean to the west and Gulf of Mexico to the east. The border traverses a variety of terrains, ranging from major urban areas to uninhabitable deserts. Approximately 350 million legal crossings occur annually,and is the most frequently crossed border in the world.















The total length of the continental border is 1,954 miles (3,145 km). From the Gulf of Mexico, it follows the course of the Rio Grande (Río Bravo del Norte) to the border crossing at Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and El Paso, Texas. Westward from El Paso–Juárez, it crosses vast tracts of the Chihuahuan and Sonoran deserts to the Colorado River Delta and San Diego–Tijuana, before reaching the Pacific Ocean.
3 United States  Canada Border

The Canada–United States border, officially known as the International Boundary, is the longest international border in the world between two countries. It is shared between Canada and the United States, the second- and fourth largest countries by area, respectively. The terrestrial boundary (including portions of maritime boundaries in the Great Lakes, and on the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic coasts) is 8,891 kilometres (5,525 mi) long, of which 2,475 kilometres (1,538 mi) is Canada's border with Alaska.









4 Slovakia, Austria and Hungary Meet up Border

A pillar marks the tripoint of the Austrian, Hungarian, and Slovak borders. It bears the letters of each country marking its sides. At the location, you also find sculptures memorating the time of the Iron Curtain, with parts of the barbed wire and border signs still in place.

The border between these three countries has witnessed a lot of history. At one time in history, all three countries were a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Like the border in Devín, more recent history has been more dramatic. Firstly, the fall of the Soviet Union made it possible for normal people to cross these borders – for the first time in decades. The second big change was the entry of Hungary and Slovakia into the European Union in 2004. Since then all three countries have been members of the Schengen Area. Because of this, you can walk across these borders without any border control agents asking to see your passport. How many tripoints around the world has the possibility to walk around the point itself?














The tripoint is near the Slovak village of Čunovo, as well as the Hungarian village of Rajka and the Austrian village of Deutsch Jahrndorf. Located around 20 kilometers south of the center of Bratislava, the tripoint is easiest accessed with a bike or car. Another option is to take the local buses to the village of Rajka, from where the tripoint is just a short walk away.
5 Norway–Sweden border

The Norway–Sweden border is a 1,630-kilometre (1,010 mi) long land national border,and the longest border for both Norway and Sweden.
The border was changed several times because of war. Before 1645, Jämtland, Härjedalen, Idre/Särna parish, and Bohuslän belonged to Norway. The border changes were defined in the Treaty of Brömsebro (1645), the Treaty of Roskilde (1658) and the Treaty of Copenhagen (1660).

In 1751 a treaty was signed in Strömstad, defining the border based on field investigations and negotiations done 1738–1751. The border was based on knowledge among local people, mainly which farm belonged to which parish and which parish to which diocese. In the unpopulated mountains, the border mainly followed the water divide. There were disagreements on the parishes of Särna, Idre, Lierne, Kautokeino and Karasjok, which had to be solved by give-and-take. Based on that, in 1752–1765 border cairns were erected between Norway and Sweden including Finland, which mostly remain today.










After the Treaty of Kiel and the Convention of Moss (1814) the union between Sweden and Norway was established, and the Norway–Sweden border became a border between two union partners. In the Negotiations in Karlstad which led up to the dissolution of the union in 1905, Norway was obliged to tear down several fortresses along the border.
During World War II, when Norway was occupied by Germany and Sweden was neutral, many Norwegians became refugees and were transported or fled over the border. The regulation of Norwegian immigrants was strict between 1940 and 1941; several would-be-refugees were declined.
6 Poland And Ukraine border

Poland–Ukraine border is the state border between Poland and Ukraine. It has a total length of 535 km (332 mi) or 529 km (329 mi)
A Poland-Ukraine border first formed, briefly, in the aftermath of the Polish-Ukrainian War in 1919. The Treaty of Warsaw of 1920 divided the disputed territories in Poland's favor along the Zbruch River. Next year, however, Ukraine lost its independence to the Soviet Union, and its remaining territories were split between Poland and the Ukrainian SSR in the Peace of Riga.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union into a number of post-Soviet states transformed the Poland-Soviet border into the chain of Poland-Russia, Poland-Lithuania, Poland-Belarus and Poland-Ukraine borders. Poland and Ukraine have confirmed the border on 18 May 1992.It is the longest of Polish eastern borders.
The Poland-Ukraine border is the most often crossed eastern border of the EU.










Most of the border traffic is generated by Ukrainian citizens. Petty trade and shopping tourism were and still are driving much of the traffic, with migration for labor purposes being another significant factor.
The border is heavily policed, as it is a major smuggling route into EU, both for goods and for illegal immigration.
Approximately 8 million people live in the border area, roughly equally divided between Poland and Ukraine.
7 Border between The Netherlands and Belgium
The Belgium–Netherlands border separates Belgium and the Netherlands and is 450 km long.
Belgium and the Netherlands are part of the Schengen Area. This means there are no permanent border controls at this border.
On the Belgian side, the border is shared by four Flemish provinces (out of the five in the Flemish Region). From west West Flanders, East Flanders, Antwerp and Limburg (Belgium). A small part is shared by the Walloon province of Liège, which also includes the German-speaking East Cantons. At the Dutch side, the border is shared by three provinces: Zeeland, North Brabant and Limburg.

















Between Belgian and Dutch Limburg, the border is mostly formed by the Meuse (Maas) river. The other parts of the border is mostly on land. The city of Baarle-Hertog forms a Belgian exclave in Netherlands. The border is complicated there, with Dutch exclaves inside it.
The eastern end point is the tripoint (together with Germany) at Vaalserberg.
8 Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay border
The Triple Frontier (Spanish: La Triple Frontera, Portuguese: Tríplice Fronteira) is a tri-border area along the junction of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, where the Iguazú and Paraná rivers converge. Near the confluence are the cities of Ciudad del Este (Paraguay); Puerto Iguazú (Argentina) and Foz do Iguaçu (Brazil). This area is near Iguazú Falls and the Itaipú hydroelectric plant.
The Triple Frontier is an important tourist area, within the touristic subregion of the Región de las Aguas Grandes. Visitors can see the Tancredo Neves bridge, which connects the Argentine city of Puerto Iguazú and its Brazilian neighbor, Foz do Iguaçu. At the convergence of the borders, each of the three bordering countries has erected an obelisk, painted in the national colors of the country in which it is located. All three countries can be seen from each of the obelisks.











The Guarani Aquifer is arguably the biggest reservoir of fresh, potable water in the world—right under Triple Border soil (Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay). The majority (71%) of its 1.2 million square kilometers lies in Brazil.
9 France – Switzerland – Germany (in Basel)
The France–Switzerland border is 572 km long. Its modern boundaries are mostly the product of the Congress of Vienna of 1815, with the accession of Geneva, Neuchatel and Valais to the Swiss Confederation, but it has since been modified in detail, for the last time (as of 2013) in 2002.

The tripoint where it meets the Swiss-German and Franco-German borders is in the river Rhine (at 47.5898°N 7.5890°E) at Basel. A monument has been built near it, known as the Dreiländereck. Its other end is at the tripoint with the French-Italian and Swiss-Italian borders (at 45.9227°N 7.0441°E) on around 3,700 metres (12,100 ft) altitude, near Mont Dolent.











Since Switzerland's accession to the Schengen Area in 2008, there have been no permanent passport controls along this border, even if there can be customs controls.
There are two airports near the border which have both Swiss and French passport and customs control, where the passengers can choose one of them. These are Basel-Mulhouse Airport which is located in France, but passengers can go to Switzerland without going through French border controls, and the Geneva Airport which is located in Switzerland, but passengers can go to France without going through Swiss border controls.

10 India Pakistan Border
The India and Pakistan Border, known locally as the International Border (IB), is an international border running between India and Pakistan that demarcates the Indian states and the four provinces of Pakistan. The border runs from the Line of Control (LoC), which separates the Indian controlled Kashmir from Pakistan controlled Kashmir, in the north, to Wagah, which partitioned the Indian Punjab state and Punjab Province of Pakistan, in the east. The Zero Point separates the Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan to Sindh province of Pakistan, in the south.









Drafted and created based upon the Radcliffe line in 1947, the border, which divides Pakistan and India from each other, traverses a variety of terrains ranging from major urban areas to inhospitable deserts.From the Arabian sea, the naval border follows the course of Manora Island of Pakistan to the course of the Mumbai Harbour, in the South east. Since independence of India and Pakistan the border has been a site of numerous conflicts and wars between each country, and is one of the most complex borders in the world.The border's total length is 2,900 km (1,800 mi), according to the figures given by the PBS; it is also one of the most dangerous borders in the world, based on an article written in the Foreign Policy in 2011.It can be seen from space at night due to the 150,000 flood lights installed by India on about 50 thousand poles.

The things we do for fashion.

The act of tightening a tie can be seen as a sign of getting down to business, or inferring superiority, or putting your best foot forward – but it might also be restricting the blood flow to the brain, according to a new study.
By compressing the veins in the neck, tie-wearers could be pushing blood into the skull and creating an unhealthy build-up of pressure.
The difference isn't enough to be a serious health risk to most people, the researchers from University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein in Germany say – but it might cause problems for groups that are already at risk from blood pressure issues, like smokers or the elderly.
Previous studies have already linked tight ties with an increase in pressure on the eyes, and a possible association with glaucoma risk as a result.
"Based on these [previous] results, the aim of this study was to further investigate the effect of how wearing a necktie can negatively affect cerebral blood flow (CBF) and jugular venous flow," write the researchers.
Using MRI scans, the team analysed 15 male volunteers who were wearing neckties tightened to a "point of slight discomfort", and 15 male volunteers who weren't wearing neckties at all.
Cerebral blood flow, the blood supply to the brain, was found to drop by an average of 7.5 percent in the men wearing a necktie, with no drop reported in the control group. The difference is likely to be caused by the extra pressure from the tie crushing blood vessels, the researchers say.
Meanwhile venous blood flow around the rest of the body wasn't affected in either of the two groups.
Blood flow to the brain is vital to its proper functioning, as you can imagine. It gives brain cells access to the oxygen, glucose, and nutrients needed to do its job, and if the supply dries up, that can cause temporary blips or, in severe cases, permanent damage.
However, Steve Kassem from Neuroscience Research Australia, who wasn't involved in the study, told Alice Klein at New Scientist that a 7.5 percent drop is unlikely to cause noticeable symptoms.
That said, people who already problems with blood flow – smokers, the elderly, those with high blood pressure, for example – might be more at risk, Kassem says. Headaches, dizziness, and nausea might be brought on.
Even though the drop noticed in this small sample isn't too damaging, it's one excuse to get your boss to go along with dress-down Fridays – or to maybe loosen your tie at little at the next wedding you go to.
As always though, it's important to get context. Take for example the 2015 study that found that wearing a suit could make the wearer feel more powerful and see the bigger picture. Maybe that's worth a little reduction in blood flow.
Based on the results of the study, the team wants to expand the research to cover those at-risk groups, to see whether wearing a necktie or not could have significant impacts on health. For those in an office job, a tie might be expected for eight hours of each day.
For now though, the majority of us can carry on tightening or loosening our ties as we prefer. The researchers conclude by pointing out that most patients don't expect their doctors to wear a tie – so that's one profession that's off the hook.
The research has been published in Neuroradiology.


Physicists from Eötvös University in Budapest and the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle have taken an innovative approach to determining when the first organic chemicals formed, and it turns out they could be a lot older than we imagined.
Complex organic chemistry once considered unique to life might not only be ubiquitous throughout the modern Universe - it may have formed a mere cosmic heartbeat after the Big Bang.
Barely a year goes by without the borders of organic chemistry being pushed to new limits. There's carbon chemistry on Mars, alcohol in the veins of baby solar systems, and molecules of aliphatic 'grease' just floating around in between stars.
We've certainly come a long way since chemists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey conducted their famous 'primordial soup' experiment in 1952, showing how a rich variety of amino acids might feasibly form on a newborn planet Earth.
Now we can picture similar amino acids forming in an infant Universe, one that is barely a few million years old.
"The results suggest that the main ingredients of life, such as amino acids, nucleotides and other key molecules, came into existence very early," the group concludes in their report.
Unlike Miller and Urey, the team took a more mathematical approach to determining how elements like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen could combine into large, complex structures.
For the first 100 million years, the periodic table of the Universe was rather brief: hydrogen, helium, and not a lot else. Baking larger building blocks demanded the gravitational ovens of stars.
This raises an interesting question – once these first stars released their payload of chunky elements, what kinds of compounds did they form?
Theoretically the recipe book would be be close to endless, considering every possible combination of every element in variable numbers.
So the research team put some constraints on the problem, limiting their scope to molecules of a given mass rather than simply atomic configurations. That way molecules of the same mass could be placed in the same basket.
Next they compared this array with Earth's sizeable chemical diversity, using a database consisting of around 94 million molecules to get a sense of the range they should consider.
Their answer was roughly 290 daltons, or a mass equivalent to roughly 290 hydrogen atoms. There's a lot of molecules around that size, with numbers dwindling significantly below 100 daltons and past the 1,000 dalton limit.
However, that's just on Earth, which, given its richness in chemistry, is pretty much a special case.
A look at 5-billion-year-old meteorites found in the Australian outback showed a similar pattern, though, with a peak at around 240 daltons and a trailing off.
This suggests there's something governing this pattern. Given all of the possible combinations of atoms in the periodic table, it seems a couple hundred daltons is a sweet spot for atomic gatherings.
Atoms can come together and hold hands in a variety of ways. Like people, some relationships take work, while other matches require little more than a random encounter.
Random meetings can account for a huge variety of molecules under 240 daltons in size. To get bigger masses, some preferential contexts – the presence of an existing well-endowed molecule, for example – are increasingly required.
Armed with these details, the team reasoned it's possible to work out when these special arrangements might have first seen light.
By their estimates, those first elements from the Universe's inaugural nuclear furnaces could have shed their star dust, which through random encounters made simple molecules smaller than 240 daltons.
Only then could astronomical processes we still see today build up on those smaller clusters of atoms, creating a rich diversity of organics.
In terms of time, there's no reason to think amino acids and nuclides couldn't be among the first sizeable carbon molecules to appear roughly 165 million years after the first stars sparked up.
But we have to keep in mind that 'organic' doesn't necessarily imply life. These stepping stones from carbon to cows might have solid roots in the early Universe, but we still have a lot to learn about those preferential contexts for biochemistry to form.
The research hasn't been given the tick of approval by a peer review panel either, but is up for everybody to read on arXiv.com. Probably worth taking with a pinch of salt until it's published in a peer-reviewed journal, but definitely still worth checking out.
It's interesting to reflect that the hazy borders of life could well stretch back to the dawn of chemistry in an emerging cosmos.

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