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The initial supermassive black holes were surprisingly average

The early Universe is a puzzling and, in some ways, nonetheless unknown place. The primary billion years of cosmic historical past noticed the explosive creation of stars and the expansion of the primary galaxies. It’s additionally a time when the earliest recognized black holes appeared to develop very large rapidly. Astronomers need to understand how they grew and why they feed extra like “regular” current supermassive black holes (SMBH).

At the moment we see SMBH in galaxies that may have upwards of hundreds of thousands or billions of photo voltaic lots sequestered away. Astronomers naturally assumed that it took a very long time for such monsters to construct up, like billions of years. So, when JWST noticed the most distant quasar J1120+0641, they anticipated to see an energetic galactic nucleus because it regarded some 770 million years after the Huge Bang. That’s, they anticipated a still-growing central supermassive black gap. They have been intrigued to seek out that it had a mass of at the very least a billion suns.
Concept vs Statement: How Do Supermassive Black Holes Kind?
The expansion of SMBH within the early Universe is a sizzling matter as of late. The usual thought for a very long time was that they grew slowly by way of mergers and acquisitions throughout galaxy formation. Since these mergers take a very long time—hundreds of thousands of years at the very least—it appeared that the black holes would go alongside for the lengthy, gradual journey. And, you may’t pace up black gap progress an excessive amount of as soon as one kinds. As matter swirls into the black gap, it does so by way of the accretion disk that feeds it. The disk, the energetic galactic nucleus, could be very vivid as a result of radiation emitted because the matter heats up by way of friction and magnetic subject interactions. The sunshine strain pushes stuff away, limiting how rapidly the black gap can eat. Nonetheless, astronomers discovered these early SMBH sporting 10 billion photo voltaic lots when, by standard knowledge, they need to have been much less large.
For J1120+0641, astronomers thought-about totally different situations for its progress, together with a so-called “ultra-effective feeding mode”. That suggests early SMBH had some very environment friendly means of accreting fuel, mud, and different materials. So, astronomers checked out these energetic galactic nuclei on the hearts of distant quasars in additional element utilizing JWST. It has the MIRI spectrograph that appears on the mild from these quasars in nice element. The MIRI spectra of J1120+0641 revealed the presence of a big mud torus (a donut-shaped ring) surrounding the accretion disk of the SMBH. That disk is feeding the SMBH at a really “regular” price, much like SMBH within the “trendy” Universe. The quasar’s broad-line area, the place clumps of fuel orbit the black gap at speeds close to the pace of sunshine, seems regular too.

Within the Last Evaluation
By nearly all of the properties that may be deduced from the spectrum, J1120+0641 seems to be feeding no in a different way than quasars at later instances. So, what does that imply for theories of SMBH formation within the early Universe? Based on Sarah Bosman, who headed up the crew that used JWST to check this and different quasars, the observations rule out quick feeding and different explanations for why the SMBH is so large. “General, the brand new observations solely add to the thriller: early quasars have been shockingly regular. Regardless of during which wavelengths we observe them, quasars are almost similar in any respect epochs of the Universe,” she stated.
In the event you extrapolate these observations to different concepts about early SMBH, it means the method of black gap progress was just about set early in cosmic historical past. They didn’t begin as stellar-mass black holes that bought huge. As a substitute, they shaped from the collapse of very large early clouds of fuel to turn into large primordial seeds. From there, not solely did they feed from their accretion disks, however most likely did develop much more large by way of these mergers and acquisitions. Because of JWST, astronomers now know that the early feeding mechanisms have been already in place very early in cosmic time. Now they simply want to determine when the primordial seeds of SMBH first appeared within the toddler Universe.
For Extra Info
A Black Hole of Inexplicable Mass
A Mature Quasar at Cosmic Dawn Revealed by JWST Rest-frame Infrared Spectroscopy
First rest-frame Infrared Spectrum of a Z > 7 Quasar: JWST/MRS Observations of J1120+0641
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GOP widens UC antisemitism investigations, hitting UCLA, UC San Francisco medical schools

The UCLA and UC San Francisco medical schools have been given two weeks to submit years of internal documents to a Republican-led congressional committee about alleged antisemitism and how the schools responded, widening the federal government’s far-reaching investigations into the University of California.
The demands from House Education and Workforce Committee Chair Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) cited reports of Jewish people “experiencing hostility and fear” at each campus and that universities had not proved that they “meaningfully responded.”
Walberg’s letters said the committee would be investigating whether the schools violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.
The additional investigation comes as top UC officials and the Justice Department have begun negotiations over allegations that the UCLA campus overall has been hostile to Jewish students, staff and faculty. The federal government has suspended more than $500 million in health, medical and energy research grants from UCLA and is seeking $1 billion and major campus changes before restoring the funds.
The Trump administration cited alleged Title VI violations when pulling the money.
The House committee said Monday it wanted “all documents and communications” since Sept. 1, 2021, tied to complaints of antisemitic incidents at UCLA and UC San Fransisco. A similar letter was also sent to the University of Illinois College of Medicine.
Some UCLA medical school faculty are members of a broader campus organization, the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group, that has aired complaints publicly for months at UC regents meetings about antisemitism.
The group’s chair, medical school assistant clinical professor of psychiatry Kira Stein, is mentioned in the Monday letter to UCLA as a faculty member who has reported anti-Jewish incidents.
“Federal lawmakers, in their letter released today, echoed what many of us have experienced firsthand: Antisemitism at UCLA is common, corrosive, and continues to be met with silence and inaction from the university administration and local leaders,” Stein said in a statement Monday.
The committee has asked for communications with UCLA’s medical school dean, administrators who work on diversity or restorative justice-related programs, and several other positions as well as data on specific events and courses, including one on “structural racism and health equity.”
It also asked for emails from administrators “referring or relating to antisemitism or the terms Jewish, Israel, Israeli, Palestine, or Palestinian.” And it requests information about a January report focused on the medical school that a UCLA task force on anti-Palestinian, anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism prepared.
That 35-page report said “students, residents and faculty in the David Geffen School of Medicine who express support for Palestinian human rights, and who offer any criticism of Israel’s violation of them, face harassment from within and outside the medical school.”
The House committee has asked for “all documents and communications since October 7, 2023 in the possession of the office of the executive vice chancellor” — UCLA Provost Darnell Hunt — related to that task force. Members of the task force have accused UCLA of not taking complaints of bias incidents against Muslims, Arab Americans and Palestinian Americans as seriously as it has reports of antisemitism.
Walberg said that, in addition to Title VI enforcement, he would use the documents to “aid the committee in considering whether potential legislative changes, including legislation to specifically address antisemitic discrimination, are needed.”
The UCLA medical school is also under a Department of Health and Human Services investigation over accusations that it “discriminates on the basis of race, color, or national origin in its admissions.” UCLA denied the charges and the department has not formally announced the results of its investigation that began in late March. But when it canceled hundreds of millions in grants to UCLA last month, the Trump administration said the action was due in part to its belief that the university illegally uses race in admissions.
In a Monday statement, a spokesperson for the UCLA medical school said it opposed antisemitism.
“Antisemitism has no place at UCLA’s medical school. Protecting the civil rights of our Jewish community members remains a top priority,” the statement said. “We are committed to fair processes in all our educational programs and activities, consistent with federal and state anti-discrimination laws and continue to take specific steps to foster an environment free of antisemitism and other forms of discrimination and harassment.”
A spokesperson for UC San Francisco did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tense disagreements have erupted at the UCLA medical school between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students, faculty and staff since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza. Each has accused the other of discrimination, doxxing and harassment. Incidents at the school have been cited by two UCLA task forces, one that looked at antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias and the other that researched anti-Palestinian, anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism.
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Abrego Garcia Detained Again After Administration Signaled It Would Re-Deport Him
A judge in Maryland barred the administration from immediately deporting Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia until he had a chance to challenge the move.
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Fed Chair Jerome Powell is worried about the job market. Here are 3 red flags for workers.

When Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday opened the door to cutting interest rates for the first time in nearly a year, he noted the tremors beginning to shake a main pillar of the U.S. economy: the labor market.
Concerns about the pace of job growth were heightened earlier this month after government data showed a sharp slowdown in hiring in July, along with much weaker payroll gains in May and June than previously thought. The disappointing numbers were alarming enough for President Trump to question their accuracy and to fire the head of the agency tasked with compiling the data.
Yet labor experts tell CBS News they weren’t surprised by the downturn, and caution that more pain could be in store for job seekers. Data released since the August 1 job numbers shows companies are delaying hiring as they adjust course to account for headwinds including fresh U.S. tariffs and the advent of artificial intelligence, they say.
“There’s a real cooling in the labor market,” Andy Challenger, senior vice president of executive outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, told CBS MoneyWatch. “We’re also having lots of individual conversations with companies that are letting us know to expect future layoffs.”
He added, “So for me, there is more reason to be pessimistic about the labor market than optimistic we’ll see some major bounce back.”
Here are three charts that could point to a serious downturn in the U.S. job market.
Fewer workers are getting hired
Overall, U.S. employers in 2025 have added fewer jobs on a monthly basis compared with the pace of gains in recent years, when companies sought to expand as the economy roared back from the pandemic. In 2024, employers hired an average of 168,000 workers each month, but that has slowed to an average of 35,000 over the past three months, Powell said on Friday.
The risk is that the labor market could weaken from here, which could lead to “sharply higher layoffs and rising unemployment,” Powell said.
The slowdown could spur the Fed to cut its benchmark interest rate, policymakers’ main tool for energizing the economy and job growth, at its meeting next month for the first time since December 2024. Lowering rates could bolster the labor market because it would make it cheaper for consumers to borrow, driving spending, for businesses to invest, including by adding workers.
More long-term job seekers
Another troubling sign is a recent surge in long-term job seekers, or people who have been searching for a job for more than 27 weeks. In July, about 1.8 million Americans had been looking for work for more than 27 weeks, a jump of about 64% from three years earlier and 20% from a year ago.
It may not get easier to find work anytime soon, given signs from employers that they intend to continue to cut jobs, Challenger said.
“Don’t take the summer off” from looking for new work, he advised job-hunters. “It’s hard to imagine a scenario where the labor market will be better in three to six months.”
A jump in unemployed young workers
At the same time, young workers are also having more trouble finding their first jobs, which has been blamed on everything from slowing economic activity this year to employers adopting artificial intelligence in place of entry-level workers.
To be sure, the nation’s unemployment rate remains low, at 4.2%. Yet that statistic is backward-looking, reflecting the labor market’s strength in previous months — it says little about economic conditions moving forward.
Meanwhile, for new college graduates the current job market amounts to “a perfect storm,” said career coach Tracey Newell.
“Companies are limiting new entry-level roles, and AI is replacing many traditional ‘starter’ jobs,” she added, noting that it isn’t unusual for employers these days to receive hundreds of job applications for a single position.
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