(Phys.org)—Two teams of researchers working independently of one another and using wildly different approaches have confirmed nickel-78 to be doubly magic. In the first effort, an international team led by Louis Olivier with the National Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics produced a copper-79 nucleus and used it as a framework for describing nickel-78. In the second effort, a team with members from across Europe approached the problem by using an advanced weighing technique. Both teams have published their results in the journal Physical Review Letters.