A number of years back, there was a great deal of excitement about using viruses to target cancer. A number of viruses explode the cells that they’ve infected in order to spread to new ones. Engineering those viruses so that they could only grow in cancer cells would seem to provide a way of selectively killing these cells. And some preliminary tests were promising, showing massive tumors nearly disappearing.

But the results were inconsistent, and there were complications. The immune system would respond to the virus, limiting our ability to use it more than once. And some of the tumor killing seemed to be the result of the immune system, rather than the virus.

Now, some researchers have focused on the immune response, inducing it at the site of the tumor. And they do so by a remarkably simple method: injecting the tumor with the flu vaccine. As a bonus, the mice it was tested on were successfully immunized, too.

Revving up the immune system

This is one of those ideas that seems nuts but had so many earlier results pointing toward it working that it was really just a matter of time before someone tried it. To understand it, you have to overcome the idea that the immune system is always diffuse, composed of cells that wander the blood stream. Instead, immune cells organize at the sites of infections (or tumors), where they communicate with each other to both organize an attack and limit that attack so that healthy tissue isn’t also targeted.

From this perspective, the immune system’s inability to eliminate tumor cells isn’t only the product of their similarities to healthy cells. It’s also the product of the signaling networks that help restrain the immune system to prevent it from attacking normal cells. A number of recently developed drugs help release this self-imposed limit, winning their developers Nobel Prizes in the process. These drugs convert a “cold” immune response, dominated by signaling that shuts things down, into a “hot” one that is able to attack a tumor.

But not everyone has a response to these drugs, raising the question of whether there are other ways to activate the immune system at the site of a tumor. One potential option is simply the things that normally rev up the immune system: infectious agents. The immune response to cancer-targeting viruses mentioned above would provide an indication that this does occur. Others have targeted a variety of pathogens to the sites of tumors and found that this increases the immune response to the tumor as well.

To check whether something similar might be happening in humans, the researchers identified over 30,000 people being treated for lung cancer and found those who also received an influenza diagnosis. You might expect that the combination of the flu and cancer would be very difficult for those patients, but instead, they had lower mortality than the patients who didn’t get the flu.

Moving to mice

For more detailed tests, the researchers moved to mice, using melanoma cells that can form tumors when transplanted into the lungs of the mice. These model systems often respond to treatments that don’t end up working in humans, so the results have to be treated with appropriate caution. Still, they can be a valuable way of understanding the biology of the immune response here.

The use of melanoma cells is informative, as these cells cannot be infected by the influenza virus. So this system also provides a test of whether the tumor cells themselves have to be infected in order to increase the immune response to them. Apparently they do not. Having an active influenza virus infection reduced the ability of the melanoma cells to establish themselves in the lung. The effect isn’t limited to the location of the infection, though, as tumors in the lung that wasn’t infected were also inhibited. The effects were similar when breast cancer cells were placed into the lung, as well.

All of this is consistent with the immune stimulation provided by a pathogen. The stimulation causes a general activation of the immune system that releases it from limits on its activity that prevent it from attacking tumor cells. But does it require an actual infection? To find out, the researchers used a flu virus that had been inactivated by heat treatment. Normally, heat treating a virus is used to create a control for an effect that needs an active virus. But here, it turned out to be another experiment, as the heat-treated virus was also able to work just as effectively as the live virus.

This isn’t entirely surprising, given that inactive viruses are often used as vaccines and thus clearly can stimulate the immune system. But that, in turn, suggested another experiment: would vaccines actually work? To find out, the researchers obtained this year’s flu vaccine and injected it into the sites of tumors. Not only was tumor growth slowed, but the mice ended up immune to the flu virus.

Oddly, this wasn’t true for every flu vaccine. Some vaccines contain chemicals that enhance the immune system’s memory, promoting the formation of a long-term response to pathogens (called adjuvants). When a vaccine containing one of these chemicals was used, the immune system wasn’t stimulated to limit the tumors’ growth.

This suggests that it’s less a matter of stimulating the immune system and more an issue of triggering it to attack immediately. But this is one of the things that will need to be sorted out with further study. The location of the stimulation will also need to be sorted out, too. Here, stimulation in one lung increases activity in both. But injection into muscles didn’t work at all, and earlier work by some of the same team had indicated a heavy infection outside the lungs enhanced tumor growth by diverting immune cells elsewhere.

But the story does fit in well with the general consensus that the immune system can be a powerful tool against cancer, provided it can be mobilized properly. And, in at least some cases, a flu vaccine just might do the trick.

PNAS, 2019. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1904022116 (About DOIs).

I was cooking this weekend when my eight-year-old son looked up from the couch, where he was listening to the Stardew Valley game soundtrack on Apple Music.

“Dad,” he announced, “I’m going to read you the name of every song on this album.”

“Cool,” I said as I minced the garlic.

“Stardew Valley Overture,” he began. “Cloud Country. Grandpa’s Theme. Settling In. Spring (It’s a Big World Outside). Spring (The Valley Comes Alive). Spring (Wild Horseradish Jam). Ha ha!”

He liked the phrase “Wild Horseradish Jam” so much that he read it again before going on.

“Pelican Town…”

As a parent, I have acquired the finely honed ability to tune out my beloved offspring, and I put it to use now. This was a good decision, because the Stardew Valley soundtrack has a whopping 70 different tracks. Minutes passed before he finally made it to track 70: “Load Game.”

He then lay still, listening to the “Dance of the Moonlight Jellies,” and I listened to it, too. The music in Stardew Valley can feel buoyant, melancholy, or numinous—sometimes all three at once. Underlying its many moods are feelings of stillness and calm; even “Mines (Danger!)” lacks the frenetic element found in so much video game music.

Like its music, Stardew Valley does not agitate or arouse, but neither is it boring, sappy, or simple. It is, nominally, a farming simulator, in which you inherit a patch of land from grandpa and head out to the country to clear trees and grow pole beans. But then you find the nearby town, and the mines, and the locals, and a strange tower, and a branch of the evil JoJoMart corporation, and you pick up a fishing pole and some geodes and a strange key… Indeed, the game turns out to be surprisingly complex, and my kids have become experts at using the Stardew Valley Wiki to figure out how the game works and what you can do within its world.

Because our kids get enough screen time during the week—the two oldest kids use Chromebooks constantly at school and for homework—we limit their time on the PlayStation 4 to weekends. Which has meant that every Saturday morning of 2019 in Casa Anderson has been permeated by the sounds of the Stardew Valley soundtrack as the kids build, explore, unlock, and interact within the game.

Ever since President Trump announced that a Space Force should be established, firearms enthusiasts have envisioned space suited door gunners, shooting any variety of futuristic-looking “space guns”.  The hope for a phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range has been renewed once more.  As we move closer to the proposed, four year buildup of the United States Space Force, let’s look at some more realistic options for choosing a standard issue firearm of the Space Force.  First, though, let’s look at some of the challenges that stand in the way of bringing a firearm into the final frontier.

arming the space force with space guns: the weight problem… in zero gravity?

The problem of weight, as it pertains to choosing which firearm to fire in space, comes in two different aspects.  Weight of the chosen firearm itself isn’t actually that large of a challenge, but the weight of the bullet it fires can come into play if a spacewalker fires enough rounds.  Getting the gun and ammo into space is fairly trivial since each gun will only weigh one and a half to three pounds, which is only a tiny fraction of the weight of the person that will be carrying it.

Firing a gun in space will have an effect on the shooter’s speed and motion, which is based on the weight of the projectile and the position of the gun relative to the center of the shooter’s mass.  Sir Isaac Newton’s third law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  The heavier the bullet, the more it affects the shooter’s speed, which compounds the issue each time a round is fired.  Most basic YouTube explanations of this issue claim that each shot will send an astronaut backwards, which is sort of true, but more accurately, it would really be slowing them down in the context of being in orbit.  Either way, if you’re moving backward or slowing down, the shooter may want to be tethered to the space ship, I know I would.  The other option would be to have a self-contained stabilization system, which is certainly possible but sounds complicated, and expensive.  I’m sorry to dash any hopes of a Moonraker style space battle, but perhaps we can work up to it… Or was that a cautionary tale rather than a how-to?

arming the space force with space guns: extreme temperatures

The next challenge when settling on a standard firearm for the Space Force is wild temperature swings.  Temps range from around 460 to -460 degrees Fahrenheit. Are the polymer guns up to the task, or will they become too brittle in the cold or melt in the light of the sun?  In Earth’s orbit, the astronauts see these swinging temperatures about every 90 minutes.

These wild temperature swings will also affect lubrication, either by evaporating it off or freezing it solid.  This problem leads me to choose a space gun that can run without lubrication, so as much as the AR-15 pattern rifle has gained military usage across the globe, its need for lube will likely preclude it orbiting the world that has embraced it.

The following two videos demonstrate another interesting factor when it comes to using firearms in space.  Extreme cold will negatively affect the velocity at which the bullet will leave the muzzle of the chosen space gun.  In the first video from Davydiver’s YouTube channel shows a shooter using liquid nitrogen to cool down .22LR cartridges to around -300 degrees (F) to see what affect the extreme negative temps have on the velocity.  In the second video, Eric from the Iraqveteran8888 YouTube channel fires a gun cooled to about -110 degrees (F). 

As demonstrated in the videos, the extreme negative temps do decrease the velocity of the projectiles, but it’s not a complete deal-breaker when it comes to using conventional arms as space guns.

arming the space force with space guns: ruling out rifles

Yes, you read the heading right.  I’m completely ruling out rifles for the Space Force, at least while actually in space.  Yet another challenge of taking guns into space, is the limitations of the spacesuit, which are currently referred to as Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU).  Spacesuits have always been somewhat cumbersome, so slinging a rifle will only complicate matters.  Before you take to your keyboard to bring the fire of a thousand suns upon me, there’s more.  The torso of the EMU is made of a hard, rounded shell, covered with the fabric layers.  Even if a special torso shell could be fabricated to accommodate shouldering a rifle, the helmet will cause some serious sight alignment issues.

When it comes to actually firing a firearm in anger in space, simply landing a bullet on target is the goal.  The bullet doesn’t have to expand, and it doesn’t have to tumble and yaw inside the enemy. Just putting a hole in the enemy’s suit creates a big problem he’ll need to sort out and will most likely take him out of the fight.  Current EMU’s have enough air and pressure for a quick retreat to the space station, so the more holes the suit has, the time left to retreat reduces considerably.

EMU suits are constructed of 13 layers of varying materials, one of which is Kevlar. However, that layer is thin and designed to stop really fast micro meteors up to 2mm.  Despite the EMU’s 13 layers, there’s still only three-sixteenths of an inch (3/16″) between an astronaut and very unlivable conditions.  It’s because of these thin layers that I think a rifle would be overkill, while adding more parts and complication in carrying, storage and maintenance.

 

arming the space force with space guns: defeating soft armor

If we can assume that the current ballistic protection in EMU spacesuits is at Level II-A or less, then let us also assume that it could eventually be up-armored to Level IIIA when the escalation begins.  In my opinion, outfitting an entire space suit with hard armor adds cost to get it into orbit and carries a mobility penalty by adding bulk to an already complicated and cumbersome system.  If this assumption is correct, then defeating that armor shouldn’t be a monumental task, even though I’ve already excluded rifles from consideration.  The photo below (poorly) shows the layers used to construct an astronaut’s EMU.  A recent article on TFB reported on a new possible 3D printed polymer product for ballistic protection, which readers immediately realized the potential for protection in space.  We’ll keep an eye on that development as it unfolds. 

CONCLUSION

Having delved into the weight issue, extreme temps, and excluded rifles from the mix, but adding armor, we’ve just narrowed down the list of possible guns to choose from in a hurry.  Now that the bigger challenges to bringing guns into space have been addressed, in Part 2, I’ll cover the calibers and guns that I think fit the bill for arming the new Space Force. 

What do you think?  Are there other hurdles I didn’t cover?  Based on the factors above, what do you think the best space gun would be?