Nature's laws may vary across the Universe

One of the most cherished principles in science - the constancy of physics - may not be true, according to research carried out at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Swinburne University of Technology and the University of Cambridge.

The study found that one of the four known fundamental forces, - measured by the so-called fine-structure constant and denoted by the symbol ‘alpha' - seems to vary across the Universe.

I wonder if the rules propagate in space — maybe one day our region of the universe will be unfavorable for life? This would be similar to what happens in Asimov's "The Gods Themselves", where two universes were connected and the leaking of the nuclear interaction constant would create a supernova on our side, generating free energy for the other universe.