'This is the holy grail of theoretical physics.' Is the key to quantum gravity hiding in this new way to make black holes?

An image of a black hole surrounded by matter. Does the secret of quantum gravity lie around these cosmic titans too?.

The first step toward quantum gravity, the "holy grail of physics," may be hiding in a quantum recipe to cook up black holes.

That's the suggestion of new research that adds quantum corrections to Einstein's 1916 theory of gravity, known as "general relativity." Black holes are relevant to this because they first theoretically emerged from the solutions to the Einstein field equations that underpin general relativity.