Dogs like TV; mRNA vaccine enhances cancer therapy; old rhyme inaccurate

This week in science news: Researchers from the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid, Spain, digitally reconstructed the ribcages of four prehistoric Homo sapiens and theorize that climate influences ribcage evolution. A century after it was predicted, physicists have reported the first observation of the transverse Thompson effect, which causes volumetric heating or cooling when an electric current and a temperature gradient flow in the same direction through a conductor. And researchers found neotropical bats in Mexico far beyond their known range.

Additionally, researchers enhanced immunotherapeutic cancer treatment with an mRNA vaccine; researchers quantified dogs’ interest in watching TV; and researchers in England debunked a venerable old nursery rhyme.

mRNA vaccine sensitizes tumors to immunotherapy

Researchers at the University of Florida report that an experimental mRNA vaccine in conjunction with immune checkpoint inhibitors boosted the immune systems of mice to attack tumor cells. The results of their study strongly suggest that a universal vaccine for cancer could be on the horizon.

Most current immunotherapy research seeks either to identify a common target expressed in people with cancer or to create custom vaccines tailored to specific targets in an individual’s cancer. But the new study suggests a novel approach: The vaccine itself doesn’t target any specific protein expressed in cancer cells. Instead, it makes tumors more sensitive to immunotherapy by stimulating the expression of a tumor protein called PD-L1, priming the immune system itself to respond as though it were fighting a virus.

Senior author Elias Sayour says, “This paper describes a very unexpected and exciting observation: that even a vaccine not specific to any particular tumor or virus—so long as it is an mRNA vaccine—could lead to tumor-specific effects.”

Dogs like TV, study finds

So my personal anecdotal evidence for dogs’ interest in TV is that during a Christmas holiday gathering, my family was watching “Scrooged” at my sisters house, and during the flashback scene where Bill Murray walks onscreen wearing a giant dog costume, my sister’s two golden retrievers absolutely lost their freakin’ minds, jumping around and yelling at the TV. In accordance with scientific practice, we were able to replicate those results by replaying the scene.

Notably, these two goldens were low-anxiety, high-excitability guys—like pretty much every golden retriever I’ve ever met—and a new survey study about “trends in dogs’ TV viewing habits” published in Scientific Reports finds that high-excitability dogs are more likely to respond to onscreen animals while high-anxiety dogs are more alert to doorbells and cars on TV. The authors note that the participants were pet owners whose dogs regularly watched TV, so the study may not be representative of all dogs.

Wednesday’s child just fine, actually

There’s a mid-19th-century poem that attempts to predict outcomes for neonatal subjects based on temporal factors:

Monday’s child is fair of face,

Tuesday’s child is full of grace.

Wednesday’s child is full of woe,

Thursday’s child has far to go.

Friday’s child is loving and giving,

Saturday’s child works hard for a living.

But the child that is born on Sabbath day,

Is bonny and blithe, good and gay.

A new study by researchers at the University of York debunks all of the poem’s contentions, finding that plenty of churlish kids are born on Tuesday and children with reasonable commutes are also born on Thursday. The researchers analyzed data from a large study of over 1,000 families with twins, which tracked the children from ages five to 18. They tested the rhyme’s predictive utility by looking for self-fulfilling prophecy effects, confirmation bias and parental influence.

The study found no connection between the day of week when the child was born and their outcomes. The family’s socioeconomic background, the child’s sex and their birth weight were much more predictive. But the point wasn’t really to refute the poem, but rather to encourage parents to talk about messages their children encounter and offer reassurance.

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