This Black Hole Is Eating So Much Matter that It Defies Known Science

Welcome back to the Abstract! 

This week, let’s get our minds as far away from Earth as possible by visiting an ancient law-breaking black hole that is consuming everything around it at an incomprehensible rate. How does it get away with it? Nobody knows, but there it is, defying our expectations of reality.

Then, have you ever wondered what your brain is doing while you watch your favorite movie? Scientists scanned some movie-watching brains just for you. Next, some new surprises in the DNA of people killed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, including the fact that the men of Pompeii were glam. Finally, a case of elephant shower sabotage? More on evidence and motive below. It’s been a long week, but science never stops.

A Binge-Eating, Growth-Spurting, Law-Breaking Black Hole 

Suh, Hyewon. “A super-Eddington-accreting black hole ~1.5 Gyr after the Big Bang observed with JWST,” Nature Astronomy

As astronomers peer deeper into the earliest epochs of the universe, they continue to encounter an unexpected mystery: Colossal black holes. How did these objects grow so big so fast, becoming monsters just a billion years after the Big Bang? It’s not an easy question to answer based on existing cosmological models. 

For example, black holes theoretically shouldn’t be able to consume matter at a higher rate than what’s known as an Eddington limit, which is a measure of the maximum luminosity of an object. But the universe has a way of dispensing with “shouldn’t.” Case in point: Scientists have now observed an ancient black hole named LID-568 that is devouring matter at 40 times its Eddington limit. 

The discovery was made using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which observed LID-568 at 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. Black holes are often invisible to telescopes, but LID-568 can be seen in X-ray light because it is an active galactic nucleus (AGN), a type of extremely luminous object powered by interactions between a black hole and the matter it consumes.   

“This object is similar to other JWST-discovered faint active galactic nuclei populations, but is bright in X-ray emission and accreting at more than 4,000% of the limit at which radiation pressure exceeds the force of gravitational attraction of the black hole (that is, super-Eddington accretion),” said researchers led by Hyewon Suh, International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab.

The team isn’t sure how LID-568 is defying the rules out there, but it’s possible that the gas outflows produced by this AGN are removing pressure from the system, allowing it to engorge itself on matter at a previously inconceivable rate. Or, perhaps, some other mechanism is responsible for this phenomenon. We just need to look at more of these early cosmic behemoths to figure out what’s driving these sudden growth spurts. 

In the meantime, LID-568’s ravenous appetite suggests that black holes in the early universe can swiftly bulk up over a period of millions of years, producing gassy outflows that temporarily extinguish star formation in their host galaxies like candles on a birthday cake. The study calls this the “blowout dusty red quasar phase” which conveniently doubles as a description of the new political climate.

LID-568 is about 7 million times as massive as the Sun, which is still relatively small for an active galactic nucleus, but Suh and her team suggest that most of its mass was acquired during this “single, super-Eddington accretion episode.” That is a major piece of the puzzle for understanding why colossal black holes show up so early in the universe, and how their sudden growth sprouts affect star formation (among other processes) in their host galaxies.  

“LID-568 could potentially represent the long-sought-after low-mass black hole undergoing rapid growth through super-Eddington accretion,” the team said. “This discovery showcases a previously undiscovered key parameter space and offers crucial insights into rapid black hole growth mechanisms in the early universe.”

This Is Your Brain on Star Wars

Rajimehr, Reza et al. “Functional architecture of cerebral cortex during naturalistic movie watching,” Neuron

Nothing is more relaxing than kicking back to watch a movie. But even as you unwind on the couch, your brain is working hard to process scenes with people, action, and dialog so that you can follow the plot. Scientists have now observed complex cerebral activity that occurs when we watch movies by collecting fMRI data from 176 participants who were shown short film clips while their brains were monitored with a 7T scanner. 

“The results revealed a comprehensive map of cortical areas, networks, and subnetworks during naturalistic movie watching,” said researchers led by Reza Rajimehr of MIT. “This parcellation reflects the architecture of the cerebral cortex when it is involved in processing complex and dynamic audiovisual scenes.”

Color-coded movie-watching brains. Image: Rajimehr, Reza et al

The team identified 24 brain networks that linked with particular processes, such as facial recognition, identifying places and landmarks, and following social interactions. They were also able to detect higher cognitive loads when scenes were difficult to follow. But my favorite part of the study is the list of scenes shown to participants, ranging from Kevin McCallister waking up to find himself abandoned in Home Alone or Han Solo and Princess Leia arguing (sexily) on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. 

For posterity, I would love to know what my brain is up to during the Moon landing scene in First Man because someone could make a billion dollars bottling that bliss. What movies would you get brain scanned for?

DNA Reveals Surprises About the People Who Died at Pompeii

Pilli, Elena et al. “Ancient DNA challenges prevailing interpretations of the Pompeii plaster casts,” Current Biology

One of the eeriest remnants of Pompeii, the Roman town buried in ash after the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, are the body casts. These casts preserve victims killed in a pyroclastic flow of superheated ejecta that struck the town, leaving behind bodies that are eerily frozen in their dying forms.  

Scientists have now extracted DNA from these casts for the first time, and the results are full of surprises. Two adults locked in an embrace, often interpreted as sisters, turned out not to be, as at least one of them is male. An adult sitting with a child has been viewed as their mother due to a golden bracelet on their arm, but this person was also revealed to be a man who was unrelated to the child, hinting that modern biases were imposed on the bodies.

“This study illustrates how unreliable narratives based on limited evidence can be, often reflecting the worldview of the researchers at the time,” said researchers led by Elena Pilli of the University of Florence, adding that the “discoveries challenge longstanding interpretations, such as associating jewelry with femininity or interpreting physical closeness as an indicator of biological relationships.” 

Indeed, one takeaway I had from the study is that men wore cool jewelry in Pompeii, as another male victim was found with “an iron ring with an engraved carnelian of a female figurine on the little finger of the left hand.”  

The Case of the Kinky Hose 

Urban, Lea et al. “Water-hose tool use and showering behavior by Asian elephants,” Current Biology

Finally, let’s end this week with a cleansing shower. An elephant shower, that is! In what may be the most delightful study of the week, scientists observed Asian elephants at the Berlin Zoo using water hoses to rinse themselves in “elegant and elaborate” ways. They also witnessed a possible case of hose tampering as one elephant, Anchali, disrupting water flow while another elephant, Mary, was showering, by clamping and kinking the hose.

“We were wondering whether Anchali purposefully interrupted the water flow going to the showering Mary or whether it was a side-effect of her playing and interacting with the water hose,” said researchers led by Lea Urban of the Humboldt University of Berlin. 

“Several strands of evidence suggest that Anchali was intentionally aiming to disrupt Mary’s shower. (1) Anchali repeatedly showed this complex sequence of trunk maneuvers. (2) Disruptions of the water flow became more effective over time. (3) The hose had to be kinked and squeezed powerfully for disruptions to occur. (4) This occurred in close association with on-hose trunk stands. (5) There would have been a motive for Anchali to interfere with Mary’s showering, as there were numerous aggressive acts by Mary toward Anchali. Taken together, these observations led us to suspect that Anchali’s kink-and-clamp behavior could reflect a purposeful water-flow-abortion strategy and that the goal could be to sabotage Mary’s showering.”

Wow, Anchali, they’ve got you dead-to-rights on five counts of shower sabotage. Will Mary seek revenge? Is there risk of escalation? I’ll keep you all posted on any follow-up studies about this unfolding elephantine drama.

Until then, thanks for reading! See you next week.