Using observations taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), a radio observatory sited in Chile, the team have determined that the galaxy, named COS-87259, containing this new supermassive black hole is very extreme, forming stars at a rate 1000 times that of our own Milky Way and containing over a billion solar masses worth of interstellar dust. The galaxy shines bright from both this intense burst of star formation and the growing supermassive black hole at its centre.

The black hole is considered to be a new type of primordial black hole — one heavily enshrouded by cosmic “dust,” causing nearly all of its light to be emitted in the mid-infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum. The researchers have also found that this growing supermassive black hole (frequently referred to as an active galactic nucleus) is generating a strong jet of material moving at near light speed through the host galaxy.

Today, black holes with masses millions to billions of times greater than that of our own Sun sit at the centre of nearly every galaxy. How these supermassive black holes first formed remains a mystery for scientists, particularly because several of these objects have been found when the Universe was very young. Because the light from these sources takes so long to reach us, we see them as they existed in the past; in this case, just 750 million years after the Big Bang, which is approximately 5% of the current age of the Universe.

What is particularly astonishing about this new object is that it was identified over a relatively small patch of the sky typically used to detect similar objects — less than 10 times the size of the full moon — suggesting there could be thousands of similar sources in the very early Universe. This was completely unexpected from previous data.

The only other class of supermassive black holes we knew about in the very early Universe are quasars, which are active black holes that are relatively unobscured by cosmic dust. These quasars are extremely rare at distances similar to COS-87259, with only a few tens located over the full sky. The surprising discovery of COS-87259 and its black hole raises several questions about the abundance of very early supermassive black holes, as well as the types of galaxies in which they typically form.

Ryan Endsley, the lead author of the paper and now a Postdoctoral Fellow at The University of Texas at Austin, says “These results suggest that very early supermassive black holes were often heavily obscured by dust, perhaps as a consequence of the intense star formation activity in their host galaxies. This is something others have been predicting for a few years now, and it’s really nice to see the first direct observational evidence supporting this scenario.”

Similar types of objects have been found in the more local, present-day Universe, such as Arp 299 shown here. In this system, two galaxies are crashing together generating an intense starburst as well as heavy obscuration of the growing supermassive black hole in one of the two galaxies.

Endsley adds, “While nobody expected to find this kind of object in the very early Universe, its discovery takes a step towards building a much better understanding of how billion solar mass black holes were able to form so early on in the lifetime of the Universe, as well how the most massive galaxies first evolved.”

“We saw a clear dose-response relationship, so the more beneficial factors someone has in terms of having higher quality of sleep, they also have a stepwise lowering of all cause and cardiovascular mortality,” said Frank Qian, MD, an internal medicine resident physician at Beth Israel Deaconess

Medical Center, clinical fellow in medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-author of the study. “I think these findings emphasize that just getting enough hours of sleep isn’t sufficient. You really have to have restful sleep and not have much trouble falling and staying asleep.”

For their analysis, Qian and team included data from 172,321 people (average age 50 and 54% women) who participated in the National Health Interview Survey between 2013 and 2018. This survey is fielded each year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Center for Health Statistics to help gauge the health of the U.S. population and includes questions about sleep and sleep habits. Qian said this is the first study to his knowledge to use a nationally representative population to look at how several sleep behaviors, and not just sleep duration, might influence life expectancy.

About two-thirds of study participants self-reported as being White, 14.5% Hispanic, 12.6% Black and 5.5% Asian. Because researchers were able to link participants to the National Death Index records (through December 31, 2019), they could examine the association between individual and combined sleep factors and all-cause and cause-specific mortality. Participants were followed for a median of 4.3 years during which time 8,681 individuals died. Of these deaths, 2,610 deaths (30%) were from cardiovascular disease, 2,052 (24%) were from cancer and 4,019 (46%) were due to other causes.

Researchers assessed ?ve different factors of quality sleep using a low-risk sleep score they created based on answers collected as part of the survey. Factors included: 1) ideal sleep duration of seven to eight hours a night; 2) difficulty falling asleep no more than two times a week; 3) trouble staying asleep no more than two times a week; 4) not using any sleep medication; and 5) feeling well rested after waking up at least five days a week. Each factor was assigned zero or one point for each, for a maximum of five points, which indicated the highest quality sleep.

“If people have all these ideal sleep behaviors, they are more likely to live longer,” Qian said. “So, if we can improve sleep overall, and identifying sleep disorders is especially important, we may be able to prevent some of this premature mortality.”

For the analysis, researchers controlled for other factors that may have heightened the risk of dying, including lower socioeconomic status, smoking and alcohol consumption and other medical conditions. Compared to individuals who had zero to one favorable sleep factors, those who had all five were 30% less likely to die for any reason, 21% less likely to die from cardiovascular disease, 19% less likely to die from cancer, and 40% less likely to die of causes other than heart disease or cancer. Qian said these other deaths are likely due to accidents, infections or neurodegenerative diseases, such as dementia and Parkinson’s disease, but more research is needed.

Among men and women who reported having all five quality sleep measures (a score of five), life expectancy was 4.7 years greater for men and 2.4 years greater for women compared with those who had none or only one of the five favorable elements of low-risk sleep. More research is needed to determine why men with all five low-risk sleep factors had double the increase in life expectancy compared with women who had the same quality sleep.

“Even from a young age, if people can develop these good sleep habits of getting enough sleep, making sure they are sleeping without too many distractions and have good sleep hygiene overall, it can greatly benefit their overall long-term health,” Qian said, adding that for the present analysis they estimated gains in life expectancy starting at age 30, but the model can be used to predict gains at older ages too. “It’s important for younger people to understand that a lot of health behaviors are cumulative over time. Just like we like to say, ‘it’s never too late to exercise or stop smoking,’ it’s also never too early. And we should be talking about and assessing sleep more often.”

These sleep habits can be easily asked about during clinical encounters, and the researchers hope patients and clinicians will start talking about sleep as part of their overall health assessment and disease management planning.  

One limitation of the study is that sleep habits were self-reported and not objectively measured or verified. In addition, no information was available about the types of sleep aid or medicine used or how often or long participants used them. Future research is needed to understand how these gains in life expectancy might continue as people age, as well as further explore the sex differences that were observed.

Previous studies have shown that getting too little or too much sleep can negatively affect the heart. It’s also been widely reported that sleep apnea, a sleep disorder that causes someone to pause or stop breathing while asleep, can lead to a number of heart conditions, including high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation and heart attacks.

Qian will present the study, “Low-risk Sleep Patterns, Mortality, and Life Expectancy at Age 30 Years: A Prospective Study of 172,321 U.S. Adults,” on Monday, March 6, at 12:45 p.m. CT / 18:45 UTC in Prevention and Health Promotion Moderated Poster Theater 10, Hall F.

ACC.23/WCC will take place March 4-6, 2023, in New Orleans, bringing together cardiologists and cardiovascular specialists from around the world to share the newest discoveries in treatment and prevention. Follow @ACCinTouch, @ACCMediaCenter and #ACC23/#WCCardio for the latest news from the meeting.

The American College of Cardiology (ACC) is the global leader in transforming cardiovascular care and improving heart health for all. As the preeminent source of professional medical education for the entire cardiovascular care team since 1949, ACC credentials cardiovascular professionals in over 140 countries who meet stringent qualifications and leads in the formation of health policy, standards and guidelines. Through its world-renowned family of JACC Journals, NCDR registries, ACC Accreditation Services, global network of Member Sections, CardioSmart patient resources and more, the College is committed to ensuring a world where science, knowledge and innovation optimize patient care and outcomes. Learn more at ACC.org,

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For a long time now, we have known modern birds evolved from certain lineages of dinosaurs that lived millions of years ago. This has led researchers to look to dinosaurs to explain some of the features unique to birds, for example, feathers, bone structure and so on. But there’s something special about the wings of birds in particular that piqued the interest of researchers at the University of Tokyo’s Department of Earth and Planetary Science.

“At the leading edge of a bird’s wing is a structure called the propatagium, which contains a muscle connecting the shoulder and wrist that helps the wing flapping and makes bird flight possible,” said Associate Professor Tatsuya Hirasawa. “It’s not found in other vertebrates, and it’s also found to have disappeared or lost its function in flightless birds, one of the reasons we know it’s essential for flight. So, in order to understand how flight evolved in birds, we must know how the propatagium evolved. This is what prompted us to explore some distant ancestors of modern birds, theropod dinosaurs.”

Theropod dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor, had arms not wings. If the scientists could find evidence of an early example of the propatagium in these dinosaurs, it would help explain how the modern avian branch of the tree of life transitioned from arms to wings. However, it’s not so simple, as the propatagium is made up of soft tissues which do not fossilize well, if at all, so direct evidence might not be possible to find. Instead, the researchers had to find an indirect way to identify the presence or lack of a propatagium in a specimen.

“The solution we came up with to assess the presence of a propatagium was to collect data about the angles of joints along the arm, or wing, of a dinosaur or bird,” said Yurika Uno, a graduate student at Hirasawa’s lab. “In modern birds, the wings cannot fully extend due to the propatagium, constraining the range of angles possible between connecting sections. If we could find a similarly specific set of angles between joints in dinosaur specimens, we can be fairly sure they too possessed a propatagium. And through quantitative analyses of the fossilized postures of birds and nondinosaurs, we found the telltale ranges of joint angles we hoped to.”

Based on this clue, the team found that the propatagium likely evolved in a group of dinosaurs known as the maniraptoran theropods, including the famous Velociraptor. This was backed up when the researchers identified the propatagium in preserved soft tissue fossils, including those of the feathered oviraptorosaurian Caudipteryx and winged dromaeosaurian Microraptor. All the specimens they found it in existed prior to the evolution of flight in that lineage.

This research means it’s now known when the propatagium came into being, and it leads researchers on to the next question of how it came to be. Why these particular theropod species needed such a structure to better adapt to their environment might be a harder question to answer. The team has already begun exploring possible connections between the fossil evidence and embryonic development of modern vertebrates to see if that will shed any light on it. The team also thinks some theropods might have evolved the propatagium not because of any pressure to learn to fly, as their forelimbs were made for grasping objects and not for flying.

“Dinosaurs portrayed in popular media are becoming more and more accurate,” said Hirasawa. “At least now we get to see features like feathers, but I hope we can see an even more up-to-date representation soon where theropods have their propatagium too.”

Maltreatment during childhood is an especially serious risk factor for health problems in the exposed individual, as it brings a host of lifelong consequences. Among the impacts are physical, mental, behavioral, and social ramifications that can continue through pregnancy and parenthood. As a result, adverse experiences during the parents’ childhood can affect their own children’s development and health.

Higher risk of asthma, ADHD, autism, and depression

In the newly published study, a team of researchers headed by Dr. Claudia Buss, a professor at the Institute of Medical Psychology at Charité, shows that health problems are more common in children of mothers who experienced maltreatment themselves as children. The researchers define maltreatment as physical, emotional, or sexual abuse or neglect by a parent or guardian leading to physical or emotional harm or the threat of harm to a child. They analyzed data on more than 4,300 American mothers and their children from 21 long-term cohorts. Mothers reported on their childhood experiences and provided information on health diagnoses in their biological children up to the age of 18, or this information was collected during visits conducted as part of the study. This valuable trove of data extending across two generations of the same family allowed researchers to identify meaningful connections.

They found that children of mothers who reported adverse experiences were at higher risk of asthma, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and autism. These children also have a higher incidence of symptoms and behaviors associated with depression and anxiety disorders, which are known as “internalizing” disorders. Daughters of mothers in this group are also at higher risk of obesity than their sons. “All of these connections are independent of whether the mother has the same diagnosis,” explains Buss, the study’s lead author. “That suggests that the risk of that particular health problem is not being transmitted genetically.”

First study to cover multiple health outcomes

Researchers have not yet fully decoded the exact mechanisms by which the risk is passed on to the next generation. There are indications that adverse childhood experiences could affect maternal biology during pregnancy, as for example stress hormones. This can affect fetal development in a way that the offspring become more vulnerable for impaired health. There is evidence that biological changes like these are more pronounced in mothers who have developed mental health problems, such as depression, as a consequence of their traumatic experiences. If the mother’s mental health is affected by her childhood experiences, this may also impact on how she interacts with her child once it is born, which is likely to be just as important a factor in these multigenerational effects.

“To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine multiple health problems at once in relation to early trauma in mothers in a large, sociodemographically and ethnically diverse sample. That has been done primarily for individual diseases in the past,” explains Dr. Nora Moog, also from the Institute of Medical Psychology at Charité and first author of the publication. In keeping with this approach, the researchers showed that children of mothers exposed to early trauma are at greater likelihood of developing multiple physical and mental health problems. The risk is also greater the more serious the mother’s childhood experiences were. “At the same time, I should stress that our findings do not mean that all children of mothers with adverse childhood experiences automatically end up with health problems,” Buss says, providing context for the group’s findings. “The risk is elevated, but it doesn’t necessarily lead to a specific health problem.”

Early identification and support for those affected

“I assume that appropriate support for mothers who suffer from the consequences of childhood maltreatment can have a positive effect on their health and well-being and that of their children. That means it’s very important to identify these mothers and children early on,” Buss points out. One way to do this would be to have doctors address parents’ own childhood experiences during prenatal or pediatric checkups and provide information on how to contact various support programs or counseling services. This kind of early intervention could help two generations: the parent, who experienced maltreatment and may be suffering from health consequences; and the child, who could be prevented from developing health problems.

Developing new, targeted therapeutic measures will depend on better understanding the exact mechanisms by which the elevated risk of health problems is passed on to the next generation. The research team is currently working on that. The researchers also plan to conduct follow-up studies to investigate which children remain resilient, meaning they do not suffer consequences beyond one generation: What makes them, their mothers, and their social environment different? Beyond that, the father’s childhood experiences have received relatively little attention so far, but there are indications that these experiences can also be passed on to the next generation, albeit in some cases by different mechanisms than those involved in mother-child transmission. The researchers plan to explore these research questions in further detail in future projects as well.

About the study

The international team of researchers analyzed the data of 4,337 American mothers from 21 long-term cohorts with an eye to the mothers’ childhood experiences. They also examined information on health diagnoses in the mothers’ biological children up to the age of 18. The cohort data were provided by a research program named Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO). ECHO encompasses 69 cohorts in the United States. It is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Claudia Buss, a professor at the Institute of Medical Psychology at Charité and adjunct professor at the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California Irvine, led the study. She is a principal investigator of a research group within the ECHO consortium and has furthermore received a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) and funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

“These objects are way more massive? than anyone expected,” said Joel Leja, assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State, who modeled light from these galaxies. “We expected only to find tiny, young, baby galaxies at this point in time, but we’ve discovered galaxies as mature as our own in what was previously understood to be the dawn of the universe.”

Using the first dataset released from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the international team of scientists discovered objects as mature as the Milky Way when the universe was only 3% of its current age, about 500-700 million years after the Big Bang. The telescope is equipped with infrared-sensing instruments capable of detecting light that was emitted by the most ancient stars and galaxies. Essentially, the telescope allows scientists to see back in time roughly 13.5 billion years, near the beginning of the universe as we know it, Leja explained.

“This is our first glimpse back this far, so it’s important that we keep an open mind about what we are seeing,” Leja said. “While the data indicates they are likely galaxies, I think there is a real possibility that a few of these objects turn out to be obscured supermassive black holes. Regardless, the amount of mass we discovered means that the known mass in stars at this period of our universe is up to 100 times greater than we had previously thought. Even if we cut the sample in half, this is still an astounding change.”

In a paper published today (Feb. 22) in Nature, the researchers show evidence that the six galaxies are far more massive than anyone expected and call into question what scientists previously understood about galaxy formation at the very beginning of the universe.

“The revelation that massive galaxy formation began extremely early in the history of the universe upends what many of us had thought was settled science,” said Leja. “We’ve been informally calling these objects ‘universe breakers’ — and they have been living up to their name so far.”

Leja explained that the galaxies the team discovered are so massive that they are in tension with 99% percent of models for cosmology. Accounting for such a high amount of mass would require either altering the models for cosmology or revising the scientific understanding of galaxy formation in the early universe — that galaxies started as small clouds of stars and dust that gradually grew larger over time. Either scenario requires a fundamental shift in our understanding of how the universe came to be, he added.

“We looked into the very early universe for the first time and had no idea what we were going to find,” Leja said. “It turns out we found something so unexpected it actually creates problems for science. It calls the whole picture of early galaxy formation into question.”

On July 12, NASA released the first full-color images and spectroscopic data from the James Webb Space Telescope. The largest infrared telescope in space, Webb was designed to see the genesis of the cosmos, its high resolution allowing it to view objects too old, distant or faint for the Hubble Space Telescope.

“When we got the data, everyone just started diving in and these massive things popped out really fast,” Leja said. “We started doing the modeling and tried to figure out what they were, because they were so big and bright. My first thought was we had made a mistake and we would just find it and move on with our lives. But we have yet to find that mistake, despite a lot of trying.”

Leja explained that one way to confirm the team’s finding and alleviate any remaining concerns would be to take a spectrum image of the massive galaxies. That would provide the team data on the true distances, and also the gasses and other elements that made up the galaxies. The team could then use the data to model a clearer of picture of what the galaxies looked like, and how massive they truly were.

“A spectrum will immediately tell us whether or not these things are real,” Leja said. “It will show us how big they are, how far away they are. What’s funny is we have all these things we hope to learn from James Webb and this was nowhere near the top of the list. We’ve found something we never thought to ask the universe — and it happened way faster than I thought, but here we are.”

The other co-authors on the paper are Elijah Mathews and Bingjie Wang of Penn State, Ivo Labbe of the Swinburne University of Technology, Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University, Erica Nelson of the University of Colorado, Rachel Bezanson of the University of Pittsburgh, Katherine A. Suess of the University of California and Stanford University, Gabriel Brammer of the University of Copenhagen, Katherine Whitaker of the University of Massachusetts and the University of Copenhagen, and Mauro Stefanon of the Universitat de Valencia.