Saturday Notes: Scientists study monkey faces and cat bellies; another black hole at the center of the Milky Way

This is not a recap of last week’s summary; another team of astronomers found a second black hole in the center of the Milky Way and I can’t help but highlight it. They are delicious! They may have formed in the early universe, contain the seeds of supermassive black holes, and may have formed through the accretion of multiple stars into a cluster rather than the collapse of stars.

If there is a third next week, I will be irresistibly compelled to tell you. If there is a fourth after that, I promise to stick it in the footnotes. In addition, scientists looked at face-to-face monkeys and a team of researchers studied cat poop, an abundant source, to draw conclusions about human metabolism.

A medium-sized object, say scientists

We reported last week on the first discovery of a medium-sized black hole right here in the Milky Way galaxy, and this week, astronomers from the University of Cologne reported the second in nearby Sagittarius A*, which is a huge culture. the hole in the center of the galaxy. The researchers were studying a galaxy called IRS 13.

Located 0.1 light-year from the center of the galaxy, (which is another way of saying “at” the center of the galaxy) the cluster exhibits a remarkable motion among the stars of it is so unexpected that the researchers could only draw two. Conclusions: Either IRS 13 interacts with Sagittarius A* in some way, or the gravitational force at the center of the cluster influences the motion of its stars and keeps the cluster cohesive. Observations of multiple wavelengths by the Very Large Telescope, ALMA and the Chandra X-ray telescope support the presence of an intermediate-mass black hole in IRS 13.

Cats per kilogram

Indoor cats are very similar to humans: They live in a climate-controlled, indoor environment, rest on furniture, and generally have access to prepared food. So scientists have come to the conclusion that it is a good disease model for human diseases. In a new study, researchers at Ohio State University examined feline gut microbes to study the origins of obesity.

Jenessa Winston, assistant professor of veterinary science at Ohio State University, says, “Animals share our beds. They share our ice cream. There are all these things that people do with their animals. domesticated animals highlighting that it is a natural model of disease exposure in the same environment as humans.”

The researchers fed seven obese cats a diet in four phases: For the first two weeks, the cats ate commercial cat food in ad libitum feeding; for one week, they were freely fed a weight loss formula; then switched for 11 weeks to a calorie-restricted weight-loss diet; and finally, they return to the original maintenance diet. By analyzing the stool samples, researchers could track changes in metabolites produced by the cats’ gut bacteria, which are linked to metabolic factors throughout the body, including hormonal markers related to inflammation and insulin resistance. .

The abundance of the short chain fatty acid, propionic acid, is increased during weight loss. “When cats are on a special diet designed for weight loss, the propionic acid goes up and stays high, and then goes back down when they are put back on the maintenance diet. So it’s basically a change of food,” says Winston.

Expression monkeys are popular, study finds

Social animals tend to have more facial muscles. For example, scientists say that the development of complex orbital muscles in dogs during domestication helped them to communicate better with people (with complex facial muscles, the Schwarzeneggers of facial muscles, symmetry and conditioning). Facial expressions convey information and meaning, and are an important form of communication.

Now, researchers at Nottingham Trent University studying rhesus macaques report that monkeys with high facial expression have stronger social relationships and are more successful in society. Their study included nine social groups of macaques with similar designs: one adult male, several adult females and children. They developed a coding system to track the movements of 17 facial muscles, focusing on the dominant males in each group. They also measured the social networks of all 66 monkeys in the study, including time spent between conspecific pairs and grooming relationships among group members.

Men with high facial expressions had stronger social ties and were likely to dominate their social networks. “Individuals with facial expressions may be better equipped to build and maintain strong social relationships, which may lead to many benefits related to group cohesion, such as increased opportunities to access resources, mating opportunities and protection against threats,” says lead author Dr. Jamie. Whitehouse.

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