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Kennedy Encourages New Parents to “Conduct Your Own Research” on Vaccines

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Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. advised new parents to “conduct their own research” prior to “conducting their own research” during a television interview regarding infant vaccinations.

In a conversation with talk show host Phil, Kennedy stated that aired on Merritt on Monday, the 100th day of the Trump administration. He reiterated his stance, saying, “To prevent the spread of measles, getting the vaccine is your best option.”

However, Kennedy maintained that the choice rests with individuals. By suggesting that the vaccine poses risks, he undermines decades of guidance from public health professionals, including officials from the CDC.

“We live in a democracy, and part of being a responsible parent is to do your own research,” he replied to questions from women in the audience regarding vaccine safety advice for new parents. “You should investigate strollers, the food they consume, and the medications they receive.”

The phrase “I did my research” has emerged as a significant cultural and political term during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pro-vaccination advocates have criticized individuals primarily from the political left who opted out of vaccination. This expression evolved into a meme and has appeared in mock gravestones at Halloween-themed cemeteries in liberal areas.

The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond promptly to requests for comments.

Kennedy’s remarks were made amidst the largest measles outbreak in the U.S. in nearly 25 years, which has resulted in the deaths of two young children and one adult.

Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and vaccine authority at Philadelphia Children’s Hospital, remarked that while he often disagrees with Kennedy, “it’s perfectly reasonable to be skeptical about a vaccine.” However, parents who wish to research should be mindful of their information sources.

“When you talk about doing your own research, it’s important to consult individuals with expertise in the area, or at least seek information from credible online sources. This doesn’t mean relying solely on chat rooms or social media,” said Dr. Offit. He emphasized that while good information exists, “many poor sources can mislead you about your options, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. exemplifies that.”

Another vaccine specialist, Dr. Peter Hotez from Baylor School of Medicine, contended that Kennedy was being misleading. “He claims people are doing their own research—what parents often download is a flood of misinformation, steering away from expert health advice toward dubious influences.”

Kennedy further suggested that measles vaccinations could lead to various illnesses without substantiation. “Would you like to stop measles?” he inquired. “Certainly, but does it cause other issues like seizures or autoimmune diseases? We don’t know. No one can answer that.”

In reality, studies indicate that with rare exceptions, vaccinated individuals are less likely than those infected to develop autoimmune illnesses, concluding that vaccines “not only shield patients from infections but also from complications, including autoimmune symptoms.”

Kennedy’s statements in the interview were generally flawed. He proclaimed, “New medications are approved by external panels, not by the FDA or CDC.”

This is inaccurate. While external expert panels advise the FDA on controversial drug approvals, only the FDA holds the authority to sanction or reject new medications, vaccines, and treatments; the CDC does not partake in this process.

“Kennedy must understand the role of the FDA in drug development and marketing decisions,” asserted Dr. Robert Califf, the FDA’s commissioner under President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Kennedy also erroneously asserted that vaccines were not subjected to safety evaluations prior to or following approval. “There is no initial safety research, and there’s no monitoring system afterward,” he claimed. “Vaccines are the only medical products exempt from pre-licensure safety assessments.”

In fact, the FDA licenses vaccines after an extensive year-long process involving thorough lab and animal testing, followed by human trials. Rigorous research on vaccine safety and efficacy is mandated. Typically, thousands participate in large clinical trials, as emphasized by Dr. Peter Marks, head of the vaccine division, who recently announced his resignation.

“I am uncertain about the origin of this misconception,” remarked Dr. Marks, critical of Kennedy. “Vaccines undergo extensive safety evaluations. Since they are administered to healthy individuals, safety is of utmost importance.”

Upon licensing, vaccines are monitored through various databases. Vaccine Safety Data Links employ electronic health records nationwide to detect unusual side effects, including rare myocarditis cases reported in young men post-COVID-19 vaccination.

Another system, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, established in 1990 as the “National Early Warning System,” relies on reports from both patients and healthcare providers. Many vaccine skeptics, including Kennedy, have cited Vaers data to argue that vaccines are harmful, but it is not intended to ascertain causality regarding health issues; rather, it flags potential concerns for further investigation.

The FDA operates an additional safety monitoring program known as BEST, focusing on biologics effectiveness and safety initiatives.

Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Infectious Diseases Committee, stated that it is incorrect to assert that federal officials do not surveil vaccine safety. “I am uncertain about the source of this claim,” he noted.

He added, “We recognize various rare adverse events. If it becomes evident that the risks approach or surpass the benefits, the vaccine will be withdrawn from the market.”

Source: www.nytimes.com

Astronomers conduct simulations of undetected asteroids within our galaxy

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Astronomers discover large planets around other stars more often than small planets.whether to measure The gravitational pull of an exoplanet on its host starobserve How much starlight do exoplanets block?or Take a photo of the exoplanet itselfObservation methods for exoplanets are biased toward planets with masses twice the mass of Earth, or 12 septillion kilograms or more. But astronomers know that small planets exist. It's just harder to find because the smaller the planet, the more accurate equipment is needed.

Astronomers call planets smaller than Earth: sub-earth or asteroid. Current telescopes are bad at finding these tiny planets, so astronomers rely on simulations to determine how they behave. A team of astronomers studied the conditions of a hypothetical planetary system containing only asteroids. They argued that understanding where asteroids are likely to appear in large numbers will allow scientists to better understand how common these types of planets are.

To obtain a representative sample of the right conditions for planetary systems to form, astronomers simulation codeGenerate models of exoplanets similar to actual observations. Using this code, the team ran 33 sets of 1,000 simulations, each set with different starting parameters. Most stars in the Milky Way are in that size range, so they simulated a system containing stars ranging from 1/2 to 5 times the mass of the Sun. They ran all but the last two sets of simulations over a billion years of simulation time.

The first set was their point of comparison. This demonstrated that the code would produce a system containing asteroids given the same conditions as a solar system in which planets smaller than Earth are known to exist. In the next set of eight, they varied the mass of the host star, the spread of mass within the disk of matter's starting point, and the ratio of gas to dust in the system. The astronomers then ran four sets of experiments varying the period during which the asteroid could accumulate new material, ranging from 320,000 to 32 million years. The researchers ran 16 more sets, varying the amount of dust the system needed to start with, from exactly the same mass of Earth to 10,000 times the mass of Earth.

The astronomers' last four sets of simulations varied depending on the host star's mass, which ranges from 1.5 to 5 times the mass of the Sun. They ran their two largest sets on shorter timescales than the rest because large stars burn out their fuel faster and have shorter lifetimes than smaller stars. At the end of a star's life, it expands, sometimes quite dramatically. Scientists used these sets to find scenarios in which the star swallows the asteroid as it expands, and scenarios in which the star survives.

The researchers noted that computing power limits the scope of the simulation, as certain systems cannot perform calculations on more than 1,000 objects at once. Also, ice and rock were not allowed to accumulate at the edges of the system, as they do in real star systems. They said these factors limit the accuracy of models of planet formation processes and long-term system dynamics, respectively.

Overall, the research team found that asteroids should be extremely abundant in the universe. They found that under the parameters they studied, systems consisting of only planets between 1 and 110 million times the mass of Earth could “easily form.” They suggested that estimates of how often planets form around stars may significantly underestimate the actual frequency of planets.

Astronomers have found that the most important factor determining how large an asteroid becomes is the amount of dust it can initially form. But they also found that systems containing only small planets stop forming when the initial available dust exceeds 100 times the mass of Earth. Their final conclusions dealt with the outermost asteroids of certain systems, which are more than 10 times the distance from Earth to the Sun. They found that although these planets rarely grow larger than small moons, they can survive the star's inevitable expansion and persist for billions of years after the star's expansion.


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Source: sciworthy.com

Physicists conduct measurements on fermium’s nuclear properties

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Physicists are GSI/FAIR accelerator facility gained insight into the structure of the atomic nucleus. Fermium is a synthetic chemical element of the actinide series with atomic number 100. Using laser spectroscopy techniques, they tracked changes in the nucleus’s charge radius and found that it steadily increased as neutrons were added to the nucleus.

Fermium isotopes studied by Warbinek others. It is highlighted in this graph. Image credit: S. Raeder.

“The heaviest atomic nucleus known to date owes its existence to quantum mechanical nuclear shell effects,'' say researchers from the Helmholtz Institute Mainz and Geographical Survey Institute Helmholtzzentrum Schwerionenforschung. said Dr. Sebastian Roeder and colleagues.

“These increase the stability of the nucleus against spontaneous fission, allowing the formation of superheavy nuclei.”

“For a certain number of protons (Z) or neutrons (N), the so-called magic numbers, the nuclear shell exhibits a large energy gap, resulting in increased stability of the nucleus.”

“This is similar to the closed electron shell of noble gases, which provides chemical inertness.”

“The heaviest known atomic nucleus with a magic number for both protons (Z = 82) and neutrons (N = 126) is lead-208, a spherical nucleus.”

“The location of the next spherical gap beyond lead-208 is still unknown. Nuclear models predict it most frequently at Z = 114, Z = 120 or Z = 126, and N = 172 or N = 184. Masu.”

“This variation in predictions is primarily due to the large single-particle density in the heaviest nuclei, among other factors.”

The authors used a laser-based method to investigate a fermium nucleus with 100 protons (Z = 100) and 145 to 157 neutrons (N = 145 to 157).

Specifically, we studied the influence of quantum mechanical shell effects on the size of atomic nuclei.

“This allows us to elucidate the structure of these nuclei in the range around the known shell effect of neutron number 152 from a new perspective,” said Dr. Rader.

“At this neutron number, signs of neutron shell closure were previously observed in trends in nuclear binding energies.”

“The strength of the shell effect was measured by high-precision mass measurements at GSI/FAIR in 2012.”

“According to Einstein, mass equals energy, so these mass measurements gave us a hint about the additional binding energy that shell effects provide.”

“The nucleus around neutron number 152 is shaped more like a rugby ball than a sphere, making it an ideal guinea pig for deeper research.”

“This deformation allows many protons within the nucleus to be separated further apart than in a spherical nucleus.”

In the measurements, the researchers investigated fermium isotopes with lifetimes ranging from a few seconds to 100 days, using different methods for producing fermium isotopes and methodological developments in applied laser spectroscopy techniques. Ta.

Short-lived isotopes are produced at the GSI/FAIR accelerator facility, where in some cases only a few atoms per minute are available for experiments.

The generated nuclei were stopped in argon gas, and electrons were picked up to form neutral atoms, which were then examined using laser light.

The neutron-rich, long-lived fermium isotopes (fermium-255, fermium-257) were produced in picogram quantities at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, USA, and the Laue Langevina Institute in France.

Their results provided insight into the variation of the nuclear charge radius of the fermium isotope over neutron number 152 and showed a stable and uniform increase.

“Our experimental results and interpretation by modern theoretical methods show that in fermium nuclei, nuclear shell effects have a small influence on the charge radius of the nuclei, in contrast to their strong influence on the binding energy of these nuclei. “This shows that,” Dr. Jessica said. Mr. Warbinek is a researcher at CERN.

“This result supports the theoretical prediction that local shell effects due to a small number of neutrons and protons lose influence as the nuclear mass increases.”

“Instead, the effects attributed to the complete assembly of all nucleons dominate, with the nuclei being seen rather as charged liquid droplets.”

of result Published in a magazine nature.

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J. Warbinek others. 2024. Smooth trend of charge radius in fermium and influence of shell effect. nature 634, 1075-1079;doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-08062-z

Source: www.sci.news

SpaceX to conduct third test launch of Starship rocket on Thursday

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SpaceX is preparing for the third test flight of its Starship mega-rocket, a crucial step that could support NASA’s plans to send astronauts back to the moon and revolutionize the commercial spaceflight industry.

The launch is scheduled to take place from SpaceX’s Starbase Test Range in Boca Chica, Texas, around 8 a.m. ET, although the timing is subject to change. The company emphasizes that schedules are flexible and can be adjusted.

The US Federal Aviation Administration has granted SpaceX approval to proceed with the test flight after confirming that all safety, environmental, policy, and financial requirements have been met.

This upcoming launch marks the third test flight of the nearly 400-foot-tall rocket. The previous tests encountered challenges, with the first flight ending in an explosion shortly after liftoff in April. The second launch in November achieved significant milestones, but missed the intended contact with the spacecraft.

SpaceX aims to achieve several ambitious goals during the third test flight, building on lessons learned from previous attempts. These goals include igniting one of Starship’s Raptor engines in space, operating the vehicle’s payload door, transferring propellant between its tanks, and demonstrating controlled re-entry into the atmosphere followed by a splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

These technology demonstrations are crucial for future missions beyond Earth’s orbit.

Starship is expected to have a significant role in NASA’s plans for lunar exploration. The spacecraft has been selected by the agency to transport astronauts to the moon’s surface as part of the Artemis III mission, set to launch in 2026.

Source: www.nbcnews.com