Cancer isn’t a single specific disease that can be cured with a universal treatment because there are many, many different kinds of cancers. Just about any multi-cellular organism can suffer from cancer, but the occurrence of cancer in some species is remarkably low — leading scientists to study those animals to find out why — to see if there might be a strategy for preventing cancers in mammals like us. Here are just a few interesting links on cancer research.
- Naked mole rats are cancer-resistant rodents, and that resistance could be due to a complex sugar called hyaluronan. This sugar exists in some form in all animals, but the naked mole rat’s hyaluronan is unusual because the enzymes that normally break it down aren’t very active in naked mole rats. [url]
- Cancer in insects has been reported for decades. So even if cockroaches can survive a nuclear war, they’re not immune to cancer. [url]
- Despite published books with titles like “Sharks (Still) Don’t Get Cancer”, sharks actually *do* get cancer. This myth has killed countless sharks as snake oil salesmen push shark cartilage as a natural cure for cancer (even though it isn’t). [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.