July 6, 2007 — Super-massive black holes at the centers of galaxies have just been promoted from the freak show to the big top. A new supercomputer simulation recreating the evolution of the universe is including, for the first time, the effects of the matter-eating monsters found at the heart of almost every galaxy.

Previous attempts to simulate how the universe evolved from an almost uniform expanse of matter and energy into our current cobweb of galactic clusters had not included the super-massive black holes.

One reason for the omission was that until a few years ago, it wasn't at all clear that black holes were important in the making of galaxies.

But that thinking has changed.

"You cannot forget black holes," said cosmologist Tiziana Di Matteo at Carnegie Mellon University. "What the simulations are trying to investigate is whether we understand the role black holes play."