Saturday, March 5, 2011

The Mere Existence of Whales ...

The Mere Existence of Whales | The Loom | Discover Magazine




Blue whales do get cancer, but it’s hard to believe that they get it at the rates that come out of Caulin and Maley’s calculations. Blue whales are known to live well over a century. Bowhead whales have reached at least 211 years. If blue whales really did get cancer as fast as the models would suggest, they ought to be extinct. 
The failure of the model means that blue whales must have some secrets for fighting cancer. “The mere existence of whales suggests that is possible to suppress cancer many-fold better than is done in humans,” Caulin and Maley write.
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