Number 468 (Story #2), January 28, 2000 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein "THE FORMATION AND EVOLUTION OF GALAXIES are intimately connected to the presence of a central massive black hole," asserts Douglas Richstone of the University of Michigan. Richstone was at the recent meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Atlanta to report the new identification of supermassive black holes at the cores of three nearby elliptical galaxies, adding to an already substantial association between galaxies possessing centralized, high-density spheroidal clumps or bulges of stars and nearby heavy black holes (star concentration correlating closely with black hole mass). Richstone pointed to the growing consensus that these massive black holes are the remnants of quasars (a notion underscored at the meeting by the report given by Andrew Wilson of the University of Maryland--of many "dying quasars" in nearby galaxies, objects whose radio spectra resemble a quieter version of quasar spectra) and to the historical fact that the age of quasar formation occurred before the time when most stars were forming in galaxies (to judge from high redshift observations). Richstone concluded that "Radiation and high-energy particles released by the formation and growth of black holes are the dominant sources of heat and kinetic energy for star-forming gas in protogalaxies."