A comprehensive new review by leading experts in the sustainability science field, published in The Lancet Planetary Health, is challenging the long-held assumption that economic growth is necessary for societal progress. The review, led by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) and titled “Post-growth: the science of wellbeing within planetary boundaries,” explores the rapidly advancing field of post-growth research and presents a compelling case for prioritizing human wellbeing and ecological sustainability over endless economic expansion.

New Haven, Conn. — A Yale-led team of astronomers has detected an intensely brightening and dimming quasar that may help explain how some objects in the early universe grew at a highly accelerated rate.

The discovery, announced Jan. 14 at the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society, is the most distant object detected by the NuSTAR X-ray space telescope (which launched in 2012) and stands as one of the most highly “variable” quasars ever identified.

“In this work, we have discovered that this quasar is very likely to be a supermassive black hole with a jet pointed towards Earth — and we are seeing it in the first billion years of the universe,” said Lea Marcotulli, a postdoctoral fellow in astrophysics at Yale and lead author of a new study published Jan. 14 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.