Listen: How small actions can help you raise successful kids

In a new podcast, a developmental psychologist explains how parents can best invest time to close the education gap.

New federal data paints a stark picture: American children are falling behind in reading and test scores, with the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged kids growing wider. But is this really just a problem of money?

University of Chicago developmental psychologist Ariel Kalil has spent her career studying how parents influence childhood development—not just through resources, but through daily habits and interactions.

On this episode of the Big Brains podcast, Kalil digs into the surprising science behind parental engagement, the behavioral biases that shape parenting decisions, and why simple interventions—like 15 minutes of reading a day—can have an outsized impact. Plus, she explains how AI and behavioral economics might provide new solutions for supporting parents in an era of rising inequality.

Read the transcript of this episode.

Source: University of Chicago

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Some cats may be good therapy animals

New research suggests that some cats might have what it takes to join the ranks of therapy animals—bringing their purrs, gentle head-butts, and calm demeanor to the field.

For years, therapy dogs have ruled the world of animal-assisted services, offering stress relief to college students, hospital patients, and those in need of emotional support.

A study in the journal Animals, coauthored by Washington State University professor Patricia Pendry in collaboration with researchers in Belgium, found that therapy cats share specific behavioral traits that may make them well-suited for AAS programs.

The research team surveyed hundreds of cat owners across Belgium using a standardized behavioral assessment. They identified key differences between cats participating in AAS and other cats in terms of feline behavior.

“There’s this perception that cats just aren’t suitable for this kind of work, but our study shows that some cats may thrive in these settings,” Pendry says.

“It turns out that cats chosen to engage in AAS seem to exhibit the same behavioral traits as therapy dogs—like high sociability and a willingness to engage with people.”

The study found that AAS cats tend to be more social with both humans and other cats, more attention-seeking, and more tolerant of being handled—particularly when it comes to being picked up, a behavior many pet owners would describe as rare in the feline world.

While animal-assisted services have long been dominated by dogs, the study suggests that expanding these programs to include felines could make therapy more accessible to a wider range of people. Some individuals may find comfort in a cat’s quiet presence rather than the enthusiastic energy of a dog.

However, Pendry cautions that not all cats are suited for the role, and unlike dogs, therapy cats are not typically trained for the job. Instead, certain cats appear to naturally possess the necessary personality traits.

Pendry notes while some cat breeds, such as Ragdolls or Maine Coons, may be considered more sociable, the study did not examine differences in behavior based on breed. In fact, the research only examined individual differences in behavioral traits within groups of cats rather than between species or breed.

Currently, therapy cats appear to be more common in Europe than in the US, where the idea has been slower to catch on. In Belgium, where the study was conducted, cats are becoming a more common presence in AAS programs, demonstrating their potential in stress-relief settings. In contrast, American campuses and hospitals remain largely focused on therapy dogs.

Despite the study’s findings, the researchers stress that more work is needed before therapy cats become a mainstream option. Questions remain about whether these traits are innate or developed through experience, as well as how to ensure that therapy work does not negatively affect feline welfare.

For now, therapy cats remain an underutilized resource in the US, but with growing research and awareness, they may soon find themselves sitting side-by-side with their canine counterparts—soaking up attention and offering comfort in their own uniquely feline way.

“The goal of the study isn’t to suddenly promote cats into therapy work,” Pendry says. “It’s about recognizing that some cats may genuinely enjoy this kind of interaction and, in the right setting, can provide meaningful support to people who need it.”

After all, she adds, if any animal could turn lounging around and receiving affection into a legitimate career, it would be a cat.

Source: Washington State University

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62-million-year-old skeleton sheds light on mysterious mammal

A remarkably well-preserved skeleton of Mixodectes pungens offers insights into mammals’ evolutionary trajectory after non-avian dinosaur extinction.

For more than 140 years, Mixodectes pungens, a species of small mammal that inhabited western North America in the early Paleocene, was a mystery. What little was known about them had been mostly gleaned from analyzing fossilized teeth and jawbone fragments.

But a new study of the most complete skeleton of the species known to exist has answered many questions about the enigmatic critter—first described in 1883 by famed paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope—providing a better understanding of its anatomy, behavior, diet, and position in the Tree of Life.

The study, coauthored by Yale anthropologist Eric Sargis, demonstrates that the mature adult Mixodectes weighed about 3 pounds, dwelled in trees, and largely dined on leaves. It also shows that these arboreal mammals—an extinct family known as mixodectids—and humans occupy relatively close branches on the evolutionary tree.

“A 62-million-year-old skeleton of this quality and completeness offers novel insights into mixodectids, including a much clearer picture of their evolutionary relationships,” says Sargis, professor of anthropology at Yale, curator of vertebrate paleontology and mammalogy at Yale Peabody Museum, and the director of the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies.

“Our findings show that they are close relatives of primates and colugos—flying lemurs native to Southeast Asia—making them fairly close relatives of humans.”

The skeleton was collected in New Mexico’s San Juan Basin by coauthor Thomas Williamson, curator of paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, under a permit from the federal Bureau of Land Management. It includes a partial skull with teeth, spinal column, rib cage, forelimbs, and hind limbs.

The researchers determined that the skeleton belonged to a mature adult that weighed about 1.3 kilograms, or 2.9 pounds. The anatomy of the animal’s limbs and claws indicate that it was arboreal and capable of vertically clinging to tree trunks and branches. Its molar teeth had crests to break down abrasive material, suggesting it was omnivorous and primarily ate leaves, the study shows.

“This fossil skeleton provides new evidence concerning how placental mammals diversified ecologically following the extinction of the dinosaurs,” says Chester, a curatorial affiliate of vertebrate paleontology at the Yale Peabody Museum.

“Characteristics such as a larger body mass and an increased reliance on leaves allowed Mixodectes to thrive in the same trees likely shared with other early primate relatives.”

Mixodectes was quite large for a tree-dwelling mammal in North America during the early Paleocene—the geological epoch that followed the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event that killed off non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago, the researchers note.

For example, the Mixodectes skeleton is significantly larger than a partial skeleton of Torrejonia wilsoni, a small arboreal mammal from an extinct group of primates called plesiadapiforms, that was discovered alongside it. While Mixodectes subsisted on leaves, Torrejonia’s diet mostly consisted of fruit. These distinctions in size and diet suggest that mixodectids occupied a unique ecological niche in the early Paleocene that distinguished them from their tree-dwelling contemporaries, the researchers say.

Two phylogenetic analyses performed to clarify the species’ evolutionary relationships confirmed that mixodectids were euarchontans, a group of mammals that consists of treeshrews, primates, and colugos. While one analysis supported that they were archaic primates, the other did not. However, the latter analysis verified that mixodectids are primatomorphans, a group within Euarchonta composed of primates and colugos, but not treeshrews, Sargis explains.

“While the study doesn’t entirely resolve the debate over where mixodectids belong on the evolutionary tree, it significantly narrows it,” he says.

The study appears in the journal Scientific Reports.

Additional authors are from Brooklyn College, City University of New York; The Graduate Center at the City University of New York; the University of Toronto Scarborough; and the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida.

Source: Yale

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Seeing trauma triggers changes in the brain

New research reveals that witnessing trauma triggers unique brain changes, distinct from those caused by experiencing trauma firsthand.

For years, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been studied primarily in people who experience trauma firsthand. But what about those who witness it—military veterans, first responders, health care workers, or bystanders to violence—who constitute 10% of all PTSD cases?

The new study is the first to shed light on the molecular differences between directly acquired PTSD and bystander PTSD and could pave the way for changes in how the disorders are treated.

“Currently, patients with directly acquired PTSD and bystander PTSD are treated the same way—with a combination of therapy and medication,” says Timothy Jarome, the project’s principal investigator and associate professor of neurobiology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech.

“Our research suggests that indirect trauma and direct trauma create different biological responses, which could mean they require different treatment strategies that target distinct brain pathways.”

Jarome’s research focuses on understanding the neurobiological mechanisms behind memory-related disorders, including PTSD, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease. His interest in bystander PTSD arose after learning about PTSD symptoms reported in people who witnessed the deadly 2021 collapse of a Miami condominium.

“People who saw it from across the street reported that they were suffering from nightmares, insomnia, and anxiety,” he says.

“They were showing symptoms of PTSD, but didn’t go through it or have any connection to the people in the building. We sought out to understand the brain mechanisms behind how that occurred.”

For the study, researchers focused on protein changes caused by a fear stimulus in three key brain regions involved in fear memory: the amygdala, the anterior cingulate cortex, and the retrosplenial cortex. They discovered that witnessing trauma triggered distinct protein degradation patterns in all three regions, compared to directly experiencing trauma.

Additionally, they uncovered sex-specific differences in how male and female brains process indirect fear memories. These findings build on previous research from Jarome’s lab, which identified a specific protein, known as K-63 ubiquitin, linked to PTSD development in women.

“Our findings highlight significant biological differences in how male and female brains respond to witnessing trauma,” says the paper’s lead author, Shaghayegh Navabpour, a former PhD student in translational biology, medicine, and health who is now a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University.

“These differences may help explain why women are twice as likely as men to develop PTSD, leading to more targeted treatments that consider these sex-specific factors.”

In future research, Jarome hopes to explore how these how these molecular pathways could be leveraged to develop more precise PTSD therapies. He also hopes to examine the role of empathy, which originates in a different brain region called the anterior insular cortex, in bystander PTSD.

The research appears in in PLOS ONE.

The research was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, which is part of the National Institutes of Health.

Source: Virginia Tech

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New tech could speed drug development and use fewer mice

Researchers have developed a technology that can be used to test around 25 antibodies simultaneously in a single mouse.

New active ingredients such as antibodies are usually tested individually in laboratory animals.

The new work should not only speed up the research and development pipeline for new drugs, but also hugely reduce the number of laboratory animals required.

Many modern drugs are based on antibodies. These proteins very specifically identify a certain structure on the surface of cells or molecules and bind onto it—this may be a receptor protruding from the cell envelope. For antibodies and other protein-based biotherapeutics, extensive preclinical tests need to be conducted on animals before they can be tested on humans.

Currently, antibody candidates are analyzed individually in animal models. A large number of laboratory animals are normally used to conduct each test. This is why preclinical tests account for a large proportion of the animals used in the pharmaceutical industry.

One possible solution would be to test several substances simultaneously in a single animal. However, up until now this method was restricted to a maximum of four active ingredients per animal.

Researchers at the University of Zurich (UZH) led by Markus Seeger from the Institute of Medical Microbiology and Johannes vom Berg from the Institute of Laboratory Animal Science have now managed to overcome this restriction.

“The approach we developed allows us to test 25 different antibodies simultaneously in a single mouse. This speeds up the process and reduces the number of animals required,” says vom Berg. To conduct this study, the team used antibodies that are already approved as a drug or those undergoing clinical development.

Drugs need to have several properties to be successful: the active ingredient is only released slowly and can therefore develop its effect in the body for a prolonged period of time. It binds precisely to a specific target structure and accumulates in the corresponding organ. In addition, the substance only spreads to a limited extent in other tissues and organs, which reduces the risk of side effects.

To allow individual analysis of the properties of the antibodies from the complex plasma or tissues samples from the mice, the researchers developed a form of barcodes. They are made up of defined protein fragments—known as flycodes—that can be used to mark each antibody individually. Once they have been administered to the mouse, the individual antibody candidates can be separated from the mixture and analyzed separately.

“Our results show that the flycode technology delivers high-quality preclinical data on the investigated antibodies. We get much more data with fewer mice and the data is of a better quality because the analyses can be compared directly,” says Seeger.

The researchers also demonstrated that the antibodies find their target structures correctly in the animals’ body: for example, two of the antibodies used in cancer medicine reliably identified the EGF receptor which the tumor cells primarily carry on the surface. The targeted accumulation in the tumor tissue also worked in a mixture with 20 other antibodies. This demonstrates that flycodes do not compromise the efficacy of the antibodies in a living organism.

In addition, the team used flycodes to analyze the properties and data for a series of 80 drug-like synthetic biomolecules—known as sybodies—efficiently in a single experiment.

“Using minimal resources, the flycode technology allows a direct comparison of drug candidates under identical experimental conditions. It is set to advance preclinical discovery pipelines much more efficiently in the future,” says Markus Seeger.

All the data in this study originates from just 18 mice. In principle, this new method can reduce the number of animals required by a factor of up to 100.

The research appears in PNAS.

Source: University of Zurich

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New method improves on cancer vaccines

A new method boosts cancer vaccine potency, researchers report.

The concept of using vaccines to treat cancers has been around for several decades. A vaccine was first approved for prostate cancer in 2010, and another was approved in 2015 for melanoma.

Since then, many therapeutic—as opposed to preventive—cancer vaccines have been in development, but none approved. One hurdle is the difficulty in finding antigens in tumors that look foreign enough to trigger an immune response.

Researchers have now developed a cancer vaccine that effectively amplifies the visibility of tumor antigens to the immune system, leading to a potent response and a lasting immunological memory that helps prevent the return of tumors after they have been eliminated.

Their vaccine avoids the need to hunt down a specific tumor antigen, instead relying on a digested mix of protein fragments called a lysate that can be generated from any solid tumor.

The vaccine they produced worked against multiple solid tumors in animal models, including melanoma, triple-negative breast cancer, Lewis lung carcinoma, and clinically inoperable ovarian cancer.

Developed by a team led by postdoctoral scholar Yu Zhao and Qiaobing Xu, professor of biomedical engineering at Tufts University, the method builds on earlier work expressing specific antigens for an enhanced immune response by making lipid nanoparticles that carry mRNA into the lymphatic system.

“We have significantly improved the cancer vaccine design by making it applicable to any solid tumor from which we can create a lysate, possibly even tumors of unknown origin, without having to select mRNA sequences, and then conjugating another component—called AHPC—that helps channel the protein fragments from the cancer cells into the immunological response pathway,” says Xu.

Unlike traditional vaccines designed to prevent infectious diseases caused by bacteria or viruses, cancer vaccines work by stimulating the body’s immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells. And unlike most vaccines against pathogens, they are designed to be therapeutic rather than preventive—acting to eliminate an existing disease. Some preventive cancer vaccines do exist, but they are generally targeted to viruses that are linked to cancers, such as HPV linked to cervical cancer.

The key to the increased potency of the new cancer vaccine lies in its ability to direct tumor-derived antigens into a cellular pathway that efficiently presents the antigens to the immune system. Think of the presentation as a kind of police lineup, where each antigen is presented for the immune system to decide if it can be considered a “suspect.”

Rounding up the antigens and getting them into an antigen presenting cell like a macrophage or dendritic cell (the police stations, if we continue with the analogy) is generally an inefficient process for tumor antigens. This is where the researchers applied a two-stage method to power up the process.

First, to make sure they round up all tumor proteins-of-interest, they modified the mix of tumor proteins with the AHPC molecule, which in turn recruits an enzyme to put a tag on the protein called a ubiquitin. It allows the cell to identify and process the protein into fragments for presentation to the immune system.

The researchers then packaged the AHPC-modified tumor proteins into tiny lipid (fat molecule) nanoparticles, specifically designed to home in on lymph nodes, where most of antigen presenting cells can be found.

Tested in animal models of melanoma, triple-negative breast cancer, Lewis lung carcinoma, and inoperable ovarian cancer, the vaccine elicited a strong response by cytotoxic T cells, which attack the growing tumors, suppressing further growth and metastasis.

“Fighting cancer has always been an arsenal approach,” says Xu.

“Adding cancer vaccines to surgical excision, chemotherapy, and other drugs used to enhance cytotoxic T cell activity could lead to improved patient responses and longer-term prevention of cancer recurrence.”

The research appears in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

Source: Tufts University

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Your environment can increase your dementia risk

A new study focuses on the powerful role our surroundings play in shaping dementia risk.

The meta-analysis demonstrates that factors including air pollution and access to green or blue spaces can significantly raise or lower the odds of cognitive decline and developing dementia.

“These numbers show that living in a dementia-friendly environment is important to delay or prevent cognitive decline and the onset of dementia,” says Suhang Song, an assistant professor of health policy and management at the University of Georgia College of Public Health who led the research.

Conducting the meta-analysis was important, as was taking several empirical studies to create a clearer picture about environmental risk, Song says. The research combined 54 studies in a systematic review and 21 in the meta-analysis, enabling researchers to quantify the impact of several factors.

While past research has shown the association between environmental factors and dementia risk, Song says the contributions of some factors were worth noting.

Living near major roadways was associated with a roughly 10% higher risk of dementia, and exposure to fine particulate matter in the air—something that is generated by vehicles and industrial emissions—was associated with a 9% increase in risk. Nitrous Oxide increased risk by 10%, and noise pollution was shown to increase risk by about 9%.

Alternatively, some built environments help reduce the risk of cognitive decline.

Green and blue spaces, which include built and natural parks as well as bodies of water, reduced risk by about 6%. Walkability in a community, as well as access to local amenities including food stores, community centers and health care, also reduced risk.

“Based on these findings, we can suggest that people visit parks or forests more often and also live further from the major roads,” Song says.

“Also, living in a community where there is more walkability, or being close to local amenities like bookstores, health care centers, and more is helpful.”

This data can help inform urban planning efforts moving forward to create more communities that foster cognitive health, Song says.

“The biggest advantage of this paper is to quantify the association between certain factors and cognitive health,” Song says.

“This analysis can provide evidence for data-driven urban planning and support decision makers.”

This systematic review and meta-analysis focused on studies using objectively measured environmental factors, which may reduce the bias associated with subjective measures such as perceptions of air quality or individual reports of green space and an area’s beauty. These instances of self-reported data can sometimes limit the reliability of a study’s conclusions.

Song hopes this study will serve as a foundation for future research, encouraging researchers to prioritize objective measurements in investigating environmental influences on cognition and dementia risk.

Source: University of Georgia

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