Researchers had previously seen these rare triaxial nuclei wobble on their shorter, transverse axes. But University of Notre Dame researchers and collaborators recently discovered that the nuclei also wobble on their intermediate axes. Their research, “Longitudinal Wobbling Motion in 187Au,” was published recently in the premier physics journal, Physical Review Letters.

The work took four to five days to complete once the team assembled at Argonne National Laboratory, in Illinois. Notre Dame physics graduate student, Nirupama Sensharma, who was the first author on the paper, spent about a year analyzing the data. Her work was highlighted recently in Nature.

Sensharma worked with Umesh Garg, professor in the Department of Physics, to develop an experiment using an isotope of gold to find out if the nucleus wobbled as predicted in a theoretical model developed by Stefan Frauendorf, also a professor in the Department of Physics. Frauendorf had hypothesized that triaxial nuclei would have two different types of wobbling motion.

The fundamental research, which Garg said does not have an immediate application for technology, was chosen as an editor’s selection in the journal. It was also highlighted as a synopsis in Physics, the online magazine of the American Physical Society. Papers selected for coverage must include an experimental breakthrough, or provide a theory with a new perspective, among other criteria.

“Where its importance lies is in confirming the predictive power of the underlying theoretical framework, generating more confidence in other predictions about nuclear physics,” Garg said. “This, among other things, can help us understand how various processes happen in stellar environments, and how heavy elements, like gold, are formed in the universe.”

In 2016 Frauendorf suggested an experiment on a gold nucleus after predicting the wobbling should exist.

“Professor Garg’s group created an outstanding experiment to measure the distribution of radiation,” Frauendorf said, noting that the experiment validated his prediction.

The work, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, was completed at the Argonne National Laboratory inside an instrument called Gammasphere. Gammasphere is the world’s most powerful gamma ray spectrometer, and collects gamma ray data following the fusion of heavy ions. Inside Gammasphere, a beam of ions and the target nucleus combine to create a much heavier, highly excited nucleus that gives off gamma rays. By observing the pattern and properties of the gamma rays, researchers can discover the structure of the nucleus — and a wobbling nucleus has a very specific structure.

Initially, Garg and his collaborators planned to look for wobbling in 189Au, but ended up accidentally populating another isotope of gold, 187Au, more strongly. The mistake was a serendipitous one.

“That one was right, it turns out,” Garg said. “But that’s how science goes; if we had done the experiment exactly as planned, I probably would have come back and said, this doesn’t very much seem like what we’re looking for.”

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Materials provided by University of Notre Dame. Original written by Deanna Csomo McCool. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

The study, based on nationally representative surveys of nearly 2,500 U.S. adults, found that up to 20% of respondents were at least somewhat misinformed about vaccines. Such a high level of misinformation is “worrying” because misinformation undermines vaccination rates, and high vaccination rates are required to maintain community immunity, the researchers said.

The study, published in the Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, was conducted in the spring and fall of 2019, when the United States experienced its largest measles outbreak in a quarter century. Between the two survey periods, 19% of the respondents’ levels of vaccine misinformation changed in a substantive way — and within that group, almost two-thirds (64%) were more misinformed in the fall than in the spring.

Media consumption patterns helped to explain the change in misinformation levels, the researchers found. Those respondents who reported increased exposure to information about measles and the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine on social media were more likely to grow more misinformed about vaccines. By contrast, those people who reported an increased exposure to news accounts about those topics in traditional media were more likely to grow less misinformed about vaccines.

“People who received their information from traditional media were less likely to endorse anti-common vaccination claims,” said lead author Dominik Stecula, a postdoctoral fellow in the science of science communication program at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC). He co-authored the study with Ozan Kuru, another APPC postdoctoral fellow, and APPC Director Kathleen Hall Jamieson.

The result is consistent with research suggesting that social media contain a fair amount of misinformation about vaccination while traditional media are more likely to reflect the scientific consensus on its benefits and safety, according to the Annenberg researchers.

‘Worrying’ levels of vaccine misinformation

The researchers found that:

• 18% of respondents mistakenly say that it is very or somewhat accurate to state that vaccines cause autism;
• 15% mistakenly agree that it is very or somewhat accurate to state that vaccines are full of toxins;
• 20% wrongly report that it is very or somewhat accurate to state that it makes no difference whether parents choose to delay or spread out vaccines instead of relying on the official vaccine schedule from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC);
• and 19% incorrectly say it is very or somewhat accurate to state that it is better to develop immunity by getting the disease than by vaccination.

Medical experts and media consumption

The researchers also found that an individual’s level of trust in medical experts affects the likelihood that a person’s beliefs about vaccination will change. Low levels of trust in medical experts coincide with believing vaccine misinformation, the researchers said.

In addition, the research found that vaccine misinformation proved resilient over time. Most of those in the sample (81%) were just as informed or misinformed in the spring (February/March) as they were months later, in the fall (September/October), despite the extensive news coverage of the measles outbreak and attempts by the CDC to educate the public. Among the 19% whose level of knowledge changed substantially, 64% were more misinformed and 36% were better informed.

The researchers point out that although the findings only show correlations between media coverage and individual attitudes — not causation — these findings still hold implications for the effectiveness of national pro-vaccination campaigns, the role of health professionals in addressing misinformation, and the impact of social media misinformation.

The findings, Kuru noted, come as a number of states have been debating whether to tighten their laws surrounding vaccination exemptions and social media companies have been wrestling with how to respond to different forms of misinformation.

The researchers said this study suggests that “increasing the sheer amount of pro-vaccination content in media of all types may be of value over the longer term.” They said the findings also underscore the importance of decisions by Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest to reduce or block access to anti-vaccine misinformation.

In a commentary published online ahead of print in the American Journal of Medicine, researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Medicine and collaborators from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, and the Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, provide guidance to health care providers and their patients. They urge that to do the most good for the most patients in primary care, health care providers should make individual clinical judgements about prescribing aspirin on a case-by-case basis.

“All patients suffering from an acute heart attack should receive 325 mg of regular aspirin promptly, and daily thereafter, to reduce their death rate as well as subsequent risks of heart attacks and strokes,” said Charles H. Hennekens, M.D., Dr.P.H., senior author, the first Sir Richard Doll Professor, and senior academic advisor in FAU’s Schmidt College of Medicine. “In addition, among long-term survivors of prior heart attacks or occlusive strokes, aspirin should be prescribed long-term unless there is a specific contraindication. In primary prevention, however, the balance of absolute benefits, which are lower than in secondary prevention patients, and risks of aspirin, which are the same as in secondary prevention, is far less clear.”

The researchers emphasize that, based on the current totality of evidence, any judgments about prescribing long-term aspirin therapy for apparently healthy individuals should be based on individual clinical judgments between the health care provider and each of his or her patients that weighs the absolute benefit on clotting against the absolute risk of bleeding.

The increasing burden of cardiovascular disease in developed and developing countries underscores the need for more widespread therapeutic lifestyle changes as well as the adjunctive use of drug therapies of proven net benefit in the primary prevention of heart attacks and strokes. The therapeutic lifestyle changes should include avoidance or cessation of smoking, weight loss and increased daily physical activity, and the drugs should include statins for lipid modification, and multiple classes of drugs likely to be necessary to achieve control of high blood pressure.

“When the magnitudes of the absolute benefits and risks are similar, patient preference assumes increasing importance,” said Hennekens. “This may include consideration of whether the prevention of a first heart attack or stroke is a more important consideration to a patient than their risk of a gastrointestinal bleed.”

Individual clinical judgements by health care providers about prescribing aspirin in primary prevention may affect a relatively large proportion of their patients. For example, primary prevention patients with metabolic syndrome, a constellation of overweight and obesity, hypertension, high cholesterol, and insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes mellitus, affects about 40 percent of Americans over age 40. Their high risks of a first heart attack and stroke may approach those in survivors of a prior event.

“General guidelines for aspirin in primary prevention do not seem to be justified,” said Hennekens. “As is generally the case, the primary care provider has the most complete information about the benefits and risks for each of his or her patients.”

According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 859,000 Americans die of heart attacks or stroke every year, which account for more than 1 in 3 of all U.S. deaths. These common and serious diseases take a very large economic toll, costing $213.8 billion a year to the health care system and $137.4 billion in lost productivity from premature death alone.

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Materials provided by Florida Atlantic University. Original written by Gisele Galoustian. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.