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Scientists Ponder the Prospect of Contagious Cancer (cnbc.com)

Posted by yaelk on from the lets-hope-this-doesnt-come-true dept.

Cancer causes many deaths each year, and anyone that's lost someone to cancer knows how painful and grueling it can be. The one saving grace is that it ultimately only kills the host. But is this changing? According to several recent papers, scientists have suggested that cancer could become contagious. Cancer cells could have the ability to metastasize, not just from organ to organ, but from person to person. While this is not an imminent threat, it has already happened in unusual circumstances.

121 comments

  1. If Hitler had won by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    this would have been an issue. But fortunately he didn't and earth is a genetically diverse place.

    1. Re: If Hitler had won by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Well that escalated quickly.

    2. Re:If Hitler had won by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      All you ANONs are CANCER spreading and infecting the internet. FUCK YOU.

    3. Re:If Hitler had won by the_Bionic_lemming · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      Yeah, really crap article.

      This craptastic article doing ZOMG about cancer becoming airborne is pretty damn stupid. What should I be more afraid of? Being shot in ChIraq, Bird Flu, or drinking water from old water systems, or air cancer?

      I just joined the "poll about Timothy" team.

      Sorry bud.

      (altho, second hand smoke can be considered "air cancer".....)

      --
      _ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
    4. Re:If Hitler had won by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Um, nothing in the article said anything about cancer becoming airborne. I didn't think it was fear mongering at all. Instead, it suggested that cancer spreading from one host to another is within the realm of possibility and not that it's likely to occur in humans.

      There are diseases that are transmissible in humans that can cause cancer. HPV is an example. The article makes it pretty clear that in just about every case there are enough defenses to make it impossible. For it to occur, it must be easy for cancer cells to pass from one person to another. Accidentally injecting oneself with cancer is a way for it to happen. The other example involved a person whose immune system was compromised and the source of the cancer was a parasite. Because conditions like this are rarely met, it's virtually impossible for cancer to be transmitted from one person to another.

      It seems like there has to be an easy pathway for many cancer cells to move from one person to another. This is extremely rare. It also seems like compromising or fooling the immune system makes it far more likely to occur. This is far more likely to occur among animals than among humans. I think the article makes it clear that what's possible isn't likely nor is it a threat right now.

      I don't get your criticism of the article.

    5. Re:If Hitler had won by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably because Hitler had a micropenis.

    6. Re:If Hitler had won by Dog-Cow · · Score: 2

      Do you really think he bothered to read the article? Where do you think you are?

    7. Re:If Hitler had won by dimko · · Score: 1

      Cancer doesn't care about host, it only cares about getting enough nutrients from the host. As long as Immune system doesn't kill it - it has no reason 'to be scared'. I am not a biologist in any shape and form. But I can see cancer as a virus/bacteria or mad cow disease or something, in this sense.

    8. Re:If Hitler had won by fraxinus-tree · · Score: 1

      Cancer doesn't care about anything. That's the point of suffering cancer. But cancer cells at large survive and can successfully suppress immune response by being pretty similar to the host in terms of surface proteins and other antigens. At least to the point where a large enough tumor forms. It is further protected by the scale factor.

    9. Re:If Hitler had won by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because conditions like this are rarely met, it's virtually impossible for cancer to be transmitted from one person to another.

      It seems like there has to be an easy pathway for many cancer cells to move from one person to another. This is extremely rare. It also seems like compromising or fooling the immune system makes it far more likely to occur.

      O Rh- blood type (or just locally prevailing blood type) cancer patient, a mosquito bite ... connect the dots. It is extremely rare though, because of epidemiological reasons - infection that slow and with so many obstacles to spreading cannot sustain its own chain of transmission. It could had been more deadly in time before we had so much genetic diversity of our immune system.

    10. Re:If Hitler had won by jafiwam · · Score: 1

      Um, nothing in the article said anything about cancer becoming airborne. I didn't think it was fear mongering at all. Instead, it suggested that cancer spreading from one host to another is within the realm of possibility and not that it's likely to occur in humans.

      There are diseases that are transmissible in humans that can cause cancer. HPV is an example. The article makes it pretty clear that in just about every case there are enough defenses to make it impossible. For it to occur, it must be easy for cancer cells to pass from one person to another. Accidentally injecting oneself with cancer is a way for it to happen. The other example involved a person whose immune system was compromised and the source of the cancer was a parasite. Because conditions like this are rarely met, it's virtually impossible for cancer to be transmitted from one person to another.

      It seems like there has to be an easy pathway for many cancer cells to move from one person to another. This is extremely rare. It also seems like compromising or fooling the immune system makes it far more likely to occur. This is far more likely to occur among animals than among humans. I think the article makes it clear that what's possible isn't likely nor is it a threat right now.

      I don't get your criticism of the article.

      Aside from HPV, I expect they will find that within the variety of cancers, a good portion of them are triggered by viruses that don't have any visible effects like HPV, and are never therefore noticed. Not all viruses that might infect a host do much to the host, in fact, it's better for the virus if they DONT.

      Either the research isn't technically feasible yet, or researchers just aren't interested in the question.

      Also note, there are documented cases of Wombats getting nose-cancer and spreading it through the entire den of animals. In that case, an affected animal has saliva and mucus coming out of the nose, and contacting other animals with thin skin and membranes in their own noses.

      When the breakthroughs happen, there is going to be a great sadness when thinking of the obviousness of the issues despite the losses that occurred while looking at other solutions.

    11. Re:If Hitler had won by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not wombats, Tasmanian Tigers.

    12. Re:If Hitler had won by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      A more interesting question is, Why is contagious cancer still so rare, given a billion years and a multiplicity of vectors that have spread every other kind of disease over large regions? We see contagious viri that cause cancer in infected individuals (HPV, Hep C) but so far only three transmissible cancers across all the world's species. Finding out what there is about cancer that limits it to one individual could be the key we have been looking for.

    13. Re:If Hitler had won by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The same mechanism behind organ transplant rejection is a pretty substantial reason. Cancer gets a boost in it's native body because it's "part of me" and so the immune system has trouble recognizing it. An arbitrary other human's cells in my body are much more likely to be treated as an infection and destroyed as such.

    14. Re:If Hitler had won by wagnerrp · · Score: 1

      Finding out what there is about cancer that limits it to one individual could be the key we have been looking for.

      It's the same thing that requires you to take immunosuppressants when you receive an organ transplant. Your cancer is you, and someone else's cancer is not. Your body has a much easier time recognizing that transmitted cancer is a foreign infection that needs to be fought off.

    15. Re:If Hitler had won by flink · · Score: 1

      I think you mean Tasmanian Devils, not wombats. Also there is a domestic canine tumor that is sexually transmissible.

    16. Re:If Hitler had won by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Warts/moles are transmissible in humans and can become malignant tissue.

    17. Re:If Hitler had won by Gilgaron · · Score: 2

      Contagious cancer is rare for the same reason that organ transplant is hard: your immune system already largely ignores your own cells, of which cancer is just a broken subtype of. Implanting random tissues from other individuals causes rejection of the tissue unless they are closely related to you and you take immunosuppressants. For this same reason, foreign cancer would be expected to be quickly destroyed unless you had AIDs or similar. I don't have a link handy, but I do recall reading a story about a man who had AIDs and contracted cancer from an ill intestinal worm (or other helminth... I can't recall). This would be especially unusual: cross species cancer should light up all the red flags in your immune system, but obviously his was especially degraded.

    18. Re:If Hitler had won by Bengie · · Score: 1

      It's also important to note that Tasmanian Tigers are nearly genetically identical, which is why the cancer can spread. Their immune system's can't tell the difference between their cells and another Tiger's cells.

    19. Re:If Hitler had won by thoughtlover · · Score: 1

      Not if Monsanto has anything to say about it.

      --
      No sig for you! Come back one year!
    20. Re: If Hitler had won by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What sort of moron would have sex with a wombat?

  2. See Tazmanian Devil cancer outbreak by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Apparently the Tazmanian Devils in Tazmania are currently suffering for a contagious cancer outbreak. Devils get into fights and claw each other's noses, the cancer cells transfer into the wounds and multiply. Screws up their faces.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease

    So for humans, it would be sorta like a zombie-like plague...

    1. Re:See Tazmanian Devil cancer outbreak by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      HPV is transmissible between humans and tends to cause tissue changes that may lead to cancer. Perhaps these viruses should be seen as a life cycle stage of the cancer.. scary thoughts, scary thoughts.

    2. Re:See Tazmanian Devil cancer outbreak by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Except cancer won't generally spread from human to human. A "cancer transplant" won't survive, because the immune system will reject it the same way it rejects transplanted organs. Tasmanian Devils hae this problem because they have little genetic diversity, so cells from another animal (including, but not limited to cancer cells) are considered "ok". Humans are more diverse, someone else's cells are hardly ever OK.

      A human already on immunosupressants (or with serious HIV) may be vulnerable - but the vast majority is not.

    3. Re:See Tazmanian Devil cancer outbreak by fraxinus-tree · · Score: 1

      Dogs even have some form of STD cancer.

    4. Re:See Tazmanian Devil cancer outbreak by fraxinus-tree · · Score: 1

      Nope. It's a symbiosis, at best. If the virus really carries a host genetic material in order to bring the cancer itself. Viruses do that, sometimes. Then again, cancer in no way helps the virus spread.

    5. Re:See Tazmanian Devil cancer outbreak by drewsup · · Score: 1

      This is ONLY because wombats have such a low genetic diversity, humans are VERY diverse.

    6. Re:See Tazmanian Devil cancer outbreak by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No really, we're not.

    7. Re: See Tazmanian Devil cancer outbreak by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Negroes. Chinese. Donald Trump.

    8. Re:See Tazmanian Devil cancer outbreak by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is no single cause of cancer. Viruses are just one way that you can affect the organism's cells in a way that they start to mutate and run amok. There are other ways to damage the cells such as toxins, radiation, and genetics. All lead to the same effect, cell replication run rampant.

      Viruses should not be seen as a "life cycle stage of the cancer".

  3. Tasmanian Devil Facial Cancer is transmittable by Harlequin80 · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is a nasty cancer which is decimating the population of Tasmanian Devils. It forms lumps and lesions in and around the mouth meaning the animal eventually starves to death. This cancer is spread through contact.

    That said it is believed that a lack of genetic diversity is a major reason in why the healty devils body doesn't recognise the invading cancer cell as coming from another animal.

    http://www.tassiedevil.com.au/...

    1. Re:Tasmanian Devil Facial Cancer is transmittable by holmstar · · Score: 1

      Good thing that *most* humans don't go around biting the faces of any other random humans they run into.

    2. Re:Tasmanian Devil Facial Cancer is transmittable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you haven't been around teenagers much lately I gather.

    3. Re:Tasmanian Devil Facial Cancer is transmittable by Harlequin80 · · Score: 1

      I can also be transmitted through shared food.

    4. Re:Tasmanian Devil Facial Cancer is transmittable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I can also be transmitted through shared food.

      It sucks to accidentally claim to be a cancer...

    5. Re:Tasmanian Devil Facial Cancer is transmittable by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Informative

      There is another transmissible cancer, in dogs that is an STD. Luckily for the dogs, it is substantially less aggressive than the Tasmanian Devil cancer, and while it spreads reasonably readily(estimates of the length of the cell line vary; but it is definitely the oldest living dog in the world, for certain values of 'dog') the host's immune system typically controls it well enough that it causes only minor symptoms or is asymptomatic.

      There have been a few once-off transmissions of cancer in humans; but no (known) ones under 'natural' conditions. An improperly screened donor organ, followed by immunosuppressants? Sure. Surgeon accidentally cutting himself and tumor cells from the patient getting into the wound? I believe that that has been documented; but no known in-the-wild transmission of actual cancer cells.

    6. Re:Tasmanian Devil Facial Cancer is transmittable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Decimate == reduce by 10%

    7. Re:Tasmanian Devil Facial Cancer is transmittable by wierd_w · · Score: 0

      There is also a sexually transmitted cancer that affects dogs, and then there is transmitted blood cancers from transfusions in humans.

      contagious cancer is already a thing.

    8. Re:Tasmanian Devil Facial Cancer is transmittable by Firethorn · · Score: 1

      There have been a few once-off transmissions of cancer in humans; but no (known) ones under 'natural' conditions.

      Indeed, with roughly 7 Billion humans and what you could consider 'intensive' monitoring of much of them, one should expect to see reports of just about everything, rarely.

      A number of people have brought up the Tasmanian Devil - looking it up, it seems that Europeans are about twice as diverse as the Tasmanian devil. Polar Bears, Pandas, Gorillas all have much more diversity.

      So it might be a possibility, like with the HeLa cancer cell line - which contaminated and took over quite a few other human cell lines.

      But yeah, between the way we behave, modern hygene, and extra diversity, a transmissible cancer should be quickly controlled.

      --
      I don't read AC A human right
    9. Re:Tasmanian Devil Facial Cancer is transmittable by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Decimate == reduce by 10%

      Words change their meaning over time, and English borrowings from Latin do not have to stick to the strict original meaning in any case.

      I was reading recently about the possible fate of David Cameron after the EU referendum and whether he would be defenestrated if it went against him. The writer did not mean that Cameron would be literally thrown out of a window to his death.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    10. Re:Tasmanian Devil Facial Cancer is transmittable by pz · · Score: 1

      Um... AIDS is a cancer of the immune system, and is transmissable.

      There's a monkey version of the HIV virus (SIV) that is more tolerated, but also causes leukemia. There's a
      cow version (Bovine Immunodeficiency Virus). There is a cat version (Feline IV).

      Then there's Kaposi's sarcoma, also caused by a virus.

      And the's a handy list of infectious agents that cause cancer.

      But perhaps you're talking about the cancer cells themselves causing the transmission, rather than an infectious agent. These are often called clonally transmissable cancers. There's a second one that's been discovered in Tasmanian Devils. It's an active area of research. Thankfully, unlike Tasmanian Devils, we don't go around biting each other on the face or, generally, exposing our bodily fluids to each other (well ...).

      --

      Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
    11. Re:Tasmanian Devil Facial Cancer is transmittable by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      Yeah, that was my intention: only cancers that are clonally transmissible, not other types of pathogens that are transmissible in the usual manner of viruses(do any bacteria or eukaryotic parasites do that sort of thing?) and often provoke the development of cancer in their host.

      So far, the one that horrifies me the most is the case of the poor bastard who was parasitized by one or more tapeworms; but ultimately died when the tapeworm developed cancer and its cancer spread beyond the tapeworm and aggressively into his tissues. That's multiple levels of "people who thought that nature was red in tooth and claw were optimists". For the sake of my sound sleep, I'm pretending that that could only have happened because he was immunocompromised; and certainly represents no risk whatsoever to anyone else; because otherwise I'm going to have to start sleeping with a flamethrower under my pillow.

    12. Re:Tasmanian Devil Facial Cancer is transmittable by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 1

      There is a nasty cancer which is decimating the population of Tasmanian Devils.

      Not just decimating - probably wiping them out in the wild.

      --
      Do you have ESP?
    13. Re:Tasmanian Devil Facial Cancer is transmittable by silentcoder · · Score: 2

      >The writer did not mean that Cameron would be literally thrown out of a window to his death

      I'm pretty sure that is the only way for Cameron to leave office which the British public would consider appropriate.

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    14. Re:Tasmanian Devil Facial Cancer is transmittable by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      Supposedly, it's lack of genetic diversity due to a near-extinction event that makes the Tasmanian devil so vulnerable to contagious cancer. We might study the American bison, which has the same genetic problem. Circa 1900, the species was down to fewer than one thousand individuals.

    15. Re:Tasmanian Devil Facial Cancer is transmittable by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Um... AIDS is a cancer of the immune system, and is transmissable.

      No...AIDS just keeps you from being able to fight all those minor cancers that would normally be caught immediately by the immune system. If you're going to be pedantic about not using the technical term of "clonally transmissable cancers", then definitely don't call a viral infection cancer.

    16. Re:Tasmanian Devil Facial Cancer is transmittable by pz · · Score: 1

      Yes, you're right. I was mixing my thoughts between HIV and HTLV-I and didn't properly re-read before posting. I sure wish Slashdot supported revisions.

      --

      Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
    17. Re:Tasmanian Devil Facial Cancer is transmittable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      == is not a statement, its a question you may as well have just written True as your post.

  4. yup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    frost p1st!!!!111

    asdkfjkahgajkdhfasdf

    party time dude excellent

  5. This haiku tells of a disease worse than cancer by TheHaikuLover · · Score: 0

    His erect penis,
    Plugged inside a man's anus.
    He is a faggot.

  6. Old news - some cancers are contagious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Human Papiloma Virus for example. There are probably many other cancers that are caused by viruses. These diseases are just difficult to catch, but you can catch some of them from another person.

    1. Re:Old news - some cancers are contagious by Harlequin80 · · Score: 1

      This is not contagious cancer. This is a contagious virus that has symptoms of cancer. Not the same thing at all. In your example the cancer is the same as a cough, a symptom.

    2. Re:Old news - some cancers are contagious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Incorrect.

      This is a tumor that metastasizes to other hosts through biting. There was only one original tumor that has spread to other hosts, it is _not_ a virus that causes tumors. It's one tumor that has spread.

        That's why it's so interesting.

    3. Re:Old news - some cancers are contagious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      So it is a contagious virus that does the exact same things that cancer does. Let's mock the OP for his ignorance.

      HAHA, HE IS SUCH A MOTHERFUCKING IGNORANT FAGGOT! LOLOLOLOL! Clop your heart out, bronies!

    4. Re:Old news - some cancers are contagious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The cancer itself is transmisible; all cells are descended from a single long dead tasmanian devil.

  7. clones by neurocutie · · Score: 1

    I suppose it should be easy to give cancer to your clone or to your twin...
    Otherwise its going to be fairly unusual... cancers that can evade the immune system, etc... or in immune-compromised hosts.

    1. Re:clones by Harlequin80 · · Score: 1

      This is believed to be the underlying problem with Tassie Devils. Their genetic diversity is so low that cells from one devil are not recognised as foreign by the others immune system.

  8. Genetic diversity and human lifespan by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One puzzle is why evolution has resulted in humans (and the vast majority of other organisms) having a limited lifespan with frequent breeding. Superficially, it would seem more efficient to invest less in the ability to procreate, but permit unlimited healthy lifespans. I have an hypothesis which I think fits with the content of TFA. Frequent breeding allows natural selection to counteract emerging diseases. Where a disease evolves that threatens to wipe out a species, genetic diversity provides an excellent chance that some individuals will be resistant. These resistant individuals can breed to aid species regeneration after being decimated by such a disease.

    1. Re:Genetic diversity and human lifespan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Evolution by variation and selection.

      Variation.

    2. Re:Genetic diversity and human lifespan by neurocutie · · Score: 1

      why is this issue a "mystery"? seems pretty obvious that biology/evolution would need to constantly explore/develop better genomes and, given limited resources, it means that every organism needs to die at some point, an expiration date. It facilitates the propagation of successful genomes while also allowing for the evolution of new ones (new solutions).

    3. Re:Genetic diversity and human lifespan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's not a mystery why individual organisms have limited lifespans. What is interesting is why it varies the way it does from species to species. What makes whales, turtles, and parakeets better species with long lifespans? What makes mice, cockroaches, and cuttlefish better species with relatively short life spans?

    4. Re:Genetic diversity and human lifespan by mysidia · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A simple increase in lifespan won't cause more reproduction, unless it also makes people fertile for a longer number of years, and likely to reproduce more times.

      Then there is the issue that evolution is like a simple hill climbing algorithm.

      So evolution can get trapped at a local maxima and does not necessarily see that an increase in lifespan makes you more fit in the long run.

    5. Re:Genetic diversity and human lifespan by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      Perhaps there are fundamental limitations on the lifespan of an organism which natural selection cannot overcome? There's no reproductive advantage to the gradual falling-apart of joints, bones and brain that characterise old age, there's simply no way in which it could have been avoided without incurring a reproductively-worse cost in another area.

      Cancer will kill every multicellular organism eventually, unless something else kills it first.

    6. Re:Genetic diversity and human lifespan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Evolution favor "frequent breeding" because it allows quick re-population after large disasters (famine, climate change, disease, predation) - and also when new land is found. A longer lifespan is something you would like personally, but it doesn't do much for the species so it is not favored. A longer lifespan would let us hold on to wisdom for longer - but the pressure for that diminished as we invented books & schools. The other evolutionary pressures are diminished due to technology too - but it will be hundreds of thousands of years before it matters much.

    7. Re:Genetic diversity and human lifespan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Planned obsolescence" - Reptilian

    8. Re:Genetic diversity and human lifespan by silentcoder · · Score: 1

      That doesn't quite correlate with the counter-point - which is looking at what animals live particularly long lives. Galapagos tortoises for example. What seems to differ is those creatures are extremely well armored and living in an area with very little natural predators.

      This matters because living to *reach* the potential lifespan of the body is extremely rare in nature - there's no point in extending that for most creatures as they simply would not live to benefit from it, so you need the rapid breeding to make up for diseases, predators and accidents.
      Humans only raised our average lifespan beyond 30 in the last couple of centuries - for millions of years before that hardly anybody lived more than half the time the body can usually sustain itself.

      Galapagos tortoises typically do live their whole lifespan since not much kills them - so the natural evolutionary response is to breed less often, thus preventing overpopulation problems. That pattern isn't viable for most animals however, and so it hasn't occurred in them.

      One likely outcome then is that - with enough time - human breeding patterns will adjust to reflect our ever longer lifespans and ever lower risk of predation. In a way, this is already happening - except it's happening through cultural rather than biological evolution. Wealthier people have fewer children - not least because their children have far higher odds of actually all living into adulthood. Technology is really just a form of cultural evolution.
      Indeed one of humanity's most powerful evolutionary advantages is culture - and having a particularly strong form of it (one reason we are the most dedicated parents in the entire animal kingdom), this is valuable because cultures and minds can evolve much, much faster than bodies can - and allows for adaptations which would have taken body plan evolution many millions of years to achieve to instead be done in a manner of years.

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    9. Re:Genetic diversity and human lifespan by Crowd+Computing · · Score: 1

      One puzzle is why evolution has resulted in humans (and the vast majority of other organisms) having a limited lifespan with frequent breeding. Superficially, it would seem more efficient to invest less in the ability to procreate, but permit unlimited healthy lifespans.

      It's less of a puzzle when we consider evolution hasn't produced an "unkillable" organism. Since all organisms are eventually killed through internal or external causes, increasing the breeding rate is a greater guarantee that a species or its genes will survive. Let's take a hypothetical extreme case, a race of non-infectious vampires that that neither ages nor breeds or otherwise increase their numbers. Eventually the mutants will thin out to extinction unless they're truly immortal, surviving not just viruses or cancer, but predators, silver bullets, or giant boulders from outer space. So an organism that breeds and dies like bacteria becomes evolutionary more successful than a longer lived but slower breeding blue whale.

    10. Re:Genetic diversity and human lifespan by Crowd+Computing · · Score: 1

      Nature could in theory produce a race of impotent but immortal creatures. If true immortality is possible then that would mean the end of evolution for that species.

    11. Re:Genetic diversity and human lifespan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In addition to diseases, such long-lived animals would be less able to adapt to other changing circumstances such as new predators, changing climate, die-off of primary food source, etc. Thus, all things equal, they would be less likely to survive through such changes.

    12. Re:Genetic diversity and human lifespan by Isao · · Score: 1

      Hypothesis: Constrained lifespan and frequent breeding (cycles) provides more opportunity to drive diversity in offspring, leading to a higher rate of natural selection and increases in overall species population. Or we could get an evolutionary biologist on here. This is probably a 101-level question for them.

  9. Indictment of our education system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    That you think that this idea is revolutionary shows just how little the average person understands evolution. This is well explored as a theme in both science (genetics, evolution, natural selection) and fiction (vampire books come to light but it's not the only genre in which this has been explored).

    Respectfully advise you to spend less time reading forums and more time reading classics. No one else is going to make them responsible for your education.

    1. Re:Indictment of our education system by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 2

      So, if my reading has been inadequate, educate me. I am currently under the (misguided?) impression that the evolutionary origin of senescence is still unknown. A favorite hypothesis has been that early death from all causes in nature drives the need for high fertility and (with few individuals living to old age) makes mutations leading to senescence irrelevant to species survival. Also popular is the notion that fertility is competitive, and it is more important to be good at procreation early in life than able to be long lived. The "disposable soma" theory that mechanisms for cellular repair would detract from those for fertility has never made much sense to me. If both can coexist when young, why must repair mechanisms deteriorate when we get older? I am aware that various evolvibility theories based upon group selection exist, but will be grateful if you would point me to the references where this is proven.

    2. Re:Indictment of our education system by dwywit · · Score: 1

      Don't sweat it. When an AC uses phrases like "how little you understand x", it's kind of self-explanatory. Mom's basement comes to mind. Your theory is cromulent.

      --
      They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
    3. Re:Indictment of our education system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because organism's chances for procreating more and spreading its genome generally don't follow its age, except perhaps in some species which keep growing all their life, staying ahead of young competitors, until they are too overgrown to feed themselves or to endure their own weight. If there was significant advantage of the old age, the genome would adapt to that selection vector. Humans (well, at least males, because female reproductive years are quite shortened, but it is under evolutionary pressure to become longer) do have such selection vector (accumulating wealth and social influence) and we do already have a long lifespan compared to most animal species we know.

    4. Re:Indictment of our education system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well long story short:
      The evolutionary origin of senescence is a diverse lot (it's not one thing). Many of the mechanisms are thought to be anti-cancer measures (essentially your cells have a pre-programed limit on how many times they can divide to keep them from dividing out of control) but as recently as 10 generations ago those mechanisms were not a significant cause of death in humans so there was no evolutionary pressure to refine them to allow longer lifespans.

      Further in females, senescence is largely irrelevant to evolution as they hit menopause long before it matters, and in males the limiting factor on how many offspring they have is not strongly correlated with age, as the optimal strategy form males is to cast a wide net and simultaneously impregnate many females as pregnancy takes a lot longer than impregnation.

  10. PLEASE MOD THE PARENT -1 REDUNDANT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Please mod the parent -1 redundant. All of the information in the above post was also in TFA.

    1. Re:PLEASE MOD THE PARENT -1 REDUNDANT by penguinoid · · Score: 2

      Please mod the parent -1 redundant. All of the information in the above post was also in TFA.

      The information that the information in the above post is in TFA, is already in TFA and the above post, which makes your post similarly redundant yet lacking any redeeming qualities.

      --
      Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
  11. 1.6 Billion-Year-Old Accident Waiting to Happen by js290 · · Score: 1

    Evolutionary Origins of Cancer --"A 1.6 Billion-Year-Old Accident Waiting to Happen" http://bit.ly/18a3ul5

    --
    "Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
    1. Re:1.6 Billion-Year-Old Accident Waiting to Happen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Daily Galaxy (linked above) is quack science, alternating populist pseudo-science and cosmology BS.

  12. Decimate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Decimate == reduce by 1/10th

    1. Re:Decimate by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      "Anonymous" comes from Ancient Greek, via Latin, and its original meaning was "without genitalia".

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  13. Dogs by xlsior · · Score: 3, Informative

    There's also a canine cancer that transmits through sexual contact:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    "canine transmissible venereal sarcoma (CTVS), sticker tumors and infectious sarcoma is a histiocytic tumor of the external genitalia of the dog and other canines, and is transmitted from animal to animal during mating."
    ...
    "The tumor cells are themselves the infectious agents, and the tumors that form are not genetically related to the host dog.[1] Although the genome of a CTVT is derived from a canid (probably a dog, wolf or coyote), it is now essentially living as a unicellular, asexually reproducing (but sexually transmitted) pathogen.[2] Sequence analysis of the genome suggests it diverged from canids over 6,000 years ago; possibly much earlier"
    ...
    "believed to be the longest continually propagated cell lineage in the world"

  14. So, are they talking about things like by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the Human papillomavirus?

    On a more serious note, shouldn't we be a little bit more worried about AIDS? For some unknown reason, people have recently been behaving as if this was not much of a concern, but in any nation where there are people of African descent, this should be very much a concern. While being gay is not a crime, nor is it offensive in any way, being downlow (which usually involves a gay man marrying a straight woman, having kids, and cheating on her with other men) should be a crime. I mean, WTF.

    Seriously. Is that what being black is all about?

    #blacklivesmatter...???

    LOL?

  15. Tapeworm cancer spreads to man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are definitely some cases: http://gizmodo.com/horrified-doctors-find-crazy-tapeworm-cancer-in-patie-1740840754

  16. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  17. Bath Salts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Good thing that *most* humans don't go around biting the faces of any other random humans they run into.

    Bath Salts, we just need moar bath salts then this will happen all the time!

    1. Re:Bath Salts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't know about bath salts but people used to drink other people's urine in order to get second-hand mescaline originally from cacti.
      I'd kill for braaaainz if I could get IPAs from them :p

  18. Russian scientist claimed all cancers caused by by justcauseisjustthat · · Score: 2

    There was a Russian scientist who claimed all cancers were caused by viruses, unfortunately I can't find the link on Ars and I'm lazy at this hour. But what if all cancers do come from a virus type that we don't have the ability to detect yet (and we aren't trying to)? It's fascinating to think about, but then look at AIDs, we've know the virus that causes it for decades and still can't cure it (although some will state it's a manageable illness now).

    1. Re:Russian scientist claimed all cancers caused by by stud9920 · · Score: 1

      Really curious: does he claim that lung cancer or liver cancer are [mainly] caused by viruses?

    2. Re:Russian scientist claimed all cancers caused by by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      HPV causes most cervical cancers and also penis cancer.

    3. Re:Russian scientist claimed all cancers caused by by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Complete and utter bullshit. Some cancer do come from viruses (cervical and penile cancers caused bu HPV for example). Most cancers are not caused by viral infection. This is something that has been settled for decades and supported by incontrovertible evidence.

    4. Re:Russian scientist claimed all cancers caused by by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What have we learned about listening to Russian scientists who make claims on the internet?

    5. Re:Russian scientist claimed all cancers caused by by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8FCJ_VPyns

      I haven't watched the whole thing yet, but what I have seen exposes lots of corruption in the medical system starting way back in the 1950's.

    6. Re:Russian scientist claimed all cancers caused by by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We've given enough lab rats cancer to know that the vast majority of cancers are not (necessarily) caused by a virus.

      Besides, we can now dreg up a scoop of ocean water and discover new species by analyzing the random bits of DNA floating around. We're not going to overlook a virus that's as prevalent as cancer.

    7. Re:Russian scientist claimed all cancers caused by by Solandri · · Score: 1

      Cancer is the fountain of youth. Your cells are programmed to reproduce up to a certain point, stop reproducing, serve a function, then die. Cancer is what you get when that programming goes awry and the cell doesn't stop reproducing. Sometimes, even the mechanism which causes cell line to die after a few reproductions stops working, and the cancerous cell line can live forever.

      While the change could be triggered by a virus, it's probably not necessary. Every cell already contains the mechanism by which it can become cancerous. All it takes is the "stop reproducing" part of the programming to malfunction for any reason. (A cancer which has metastasized has also had a breakdown in the "stay in this location" part of its cellular programming. The cells unanchor themselves and travel to other parts of the body, thus causing the cancer to spread.)

  19. Re:human papillomavirus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    That's a good point. If the cause of a cancer is contagious, then for all intents and purposes it's a contagious cancer.

  20. All has become clear by hyades1 · · Score: 1

    This could account for the spread of conservatism in the body politic of many Western countries. :-)

    --
    I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
  21. Re:human papillomavirus by dwywit · · Score: 1

    This is what I don't understand. Cancer develops, becomes a life-threatening/metastatic tumour because one or more mutated cells have managed to avoid or fool numerous detection and termination processes in a particular individual. I may be more likely to develop a cancer of a particular type because a relative has had it - but that implies a susceptibility because of very similar DNA (for want of a better term - and my GP tells me that the non-hodgkins lymphoma that killed my mother is NOT one of the genetically likely types), or because northern european/irish types have a particular susceptibility to a particular type/s of cancer. I *might* be likely to transmit a mutated cell, leading to a tumour, to a person of similar genotype (for want of a better word) , but as I'm a fair-skinned northern european/irish type, how could my 'fooled' immune system be similar enough to be similar enough to anyone outside my genetic "region"? e.g. asian, african, even southern european.

    --
    They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
  22. Bugs already solved that problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See here:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOTlNOZB4Zo

  23. In addition to dogs and devils: by queazocotal · · Score: 1

    There is also the Clam.
    https://www.mixcloud.com/thisw... This is an excelent podcast on virology.
    Or for those more into the heavier stuff: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...

  24. Feline Leukemia Virus by Harold+Halloway · · Score: 0

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    I'm slightly surprised that the notion of contagious cancer is being presented as something new. I've known about cats and FeLV for decades and I'm not exactly a scientist, epidemiologist or medical researcher.

  25. True story...of SV40 by transporter_ii · · Score: 1

    Between 1954 and 1963, close to 98 million Americans received polio vaccinations contaminated with a carcinogenic monkey virus, now known as SV40.

    http://amzn.com/0312278721

    It may sound like the stuff of conspiracy buffs, but it is in fact a true story. Doctors had to go in front of congress and testify to get the contaminated vaccines pulled.

    I had a brother in the age range to have gotten this polio vaccine, and he died from a brain tumor in his early 50s. Anecdotal, yes. Dead, yes.

    --
    Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
  26. Cancer epidemic from eating crap by transporter_ii · · Score: 1

    And of course, we make ourselves vulnerable to cancer from the crap we eat and the lack of exercise. Younger and younger people are now getting cancer, so we are making ourselves good hosts from a very young age:

    Once considered an older person’s disease, colorectal cancer is showing up in individuals as young as 20 years old.

    http://www.havasunews.com/opin...

    --
    Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
    1. Re:Cancer epidemic from eating crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Better detection means spotting things thought to be age related in younger populations (and earlier stages of development, so easier to resolve).

      That article you linked doesn't even support your culinary dogma, it simply suggests that people who have a family history of certain cancer types should request screening for those more often. Much like how people from families with high blood pressure issues may want to have their blood pressure checked a bit more often than those without such a legacy to grow into. It's generally good medical advice to know the health trends of your ancestry, you probably inherited much of it.

  27. I've been saying this for 15+ years by PortHaven · · Score: 1

    Nice to know the science is finally catching up....

    We know the HPV triggers cancer. We know that the Tasmanian Devils are suffering from it. I suspect that some brain cancers are in fact contagious. Had a friend working on a research team on brain cancer, who then contracted it.

    1. Re:I've been saying this for 15+ years by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      HPV does not "trigger" cancer. HPV alters cells which can MAYBE then become cancerous after years and years IF the woman does not obtain ANY gynecological care post-exposure.

      But, also, HPV is not cancer. HIV is not AIDS. HPV is contagious. Cervical cancer is not. HIV is contagious. AIDS is not.

      Do you understand the difference now?

    2. Re:I've been saying this for 15+ years by Gilgaron · · Score: 1

      It would be highly unlikely that exogenous cancer cells could reach the brain of a second individual. Far more likely is that the laboratory reagents he was working with gave him cancer.

    3. Re:I've been saying this for 15+ years by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably his cell phone.

  28. Because fuck you humans. by silentcoder · · Score: 1

    Thats why.

    --
    Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
  29. GMO Cancer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is this due to GMO cancer experiments?

  30. Chicken Little Hyperbole by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Right. And we were supposed to see airborne HIV by 1990 if we didn't immediately spend millions of taxpayer dollars supporting HIV researchers.

    And, let's not get started on "The Earth is Going to Melt This Year if I Don't Get My $5M Grant Renewed" climate alarmism.

    It's not a problem until it's a problem. And, right now, it's not a problem. Cancer doesn't spread via contagion vectors, and current science (that is, science, not speculation, and not anecdote) says there is no mechanism for that to happen.

    1. Re:Chicken Little Hyperbole by SecurityGuy · · Score: 1

      My thoughts exactly. Have we seriously no other health issues in the world that we need to worry about something that MIGHT happen someday, but for which there's nothing at all to suggest it's a real threat?

      Maybe we could dismiss nonsense like this and pay attention to actual cancer which kills lots of actual people every year?

  31. A surgeon got cancer from one of his patients by zerofoo · · Score: 2

    I read a while back that a surgeon accidentally got cancer from one of his surgical patients:

    http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/1...

    So, it appears that cancer can move between hosts in a mechanical fashion.

    1. Re:A surgeon got cancer from one of his patients by smellsofbikes · · Score: 1

      I read a while back that a surgeon accidentally got cancer from one of his surgical patients:

      http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/1...

      So, it appears that cancer can move between hosts in a mechanical fashion.

      I found a nastier one a while back: guy has tapeworm, tapeworm has cancer, tapeworm spreads its cancer throughout the guy's body as it wriggles around.
      Here's the story. One of the interesting things was that the tapeworm tumors had differently-sized cells, so they were easy to differentiate from the host's cells. Now, that's not exactly cancer being transmitted, insofar as it wasn't his cells that were turning cancerous, but they were growing/multiplying and helped cause his death. It's like being infected with some other animal's cancer.

      --
      Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
  32. there are a lot of crank claims for cancer by aepervius · · Score: 1

    Like Simoncini's claim that cancer are all caused by fungus (the reason he thinks that are trivially laughable). Fact is, that we know that some type of cancer are caused by virus others are documented to be by carcinogene substance. Exposing a mice to benzene or formaldehyde does not suddenly make a virus spontaneously appear and be missed by generation of scientist which think carcinogene exists. So claima s such you cited seem to belong to the crank category. And yes we have the ability to detect even very small virus and we did & do routinely search for them in research case - if only to eliminate that explanation.

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
  33. It's not a simple thing though. by sbaker · · Score: 1

    Cancers cause crazy replication of the victims own cells. The defenses we have against most diseases are of the form "Recognize something that isn't me and kill it!" - but cancer cells are pretty much identical to regular cells - which is why curing cancer is so hard.

    But the idea of someone else's cancer cell getting into my body and running amok isn't such a big deal because their cells are not recognized as "me" - and my regular defenses should attack them just like a bacterial infection - and just like we reject organ transplants without anti-rejection drugs.

    The case of the Tasmanian Devil face cancer is instructive - their problem is a drastic lack of genetic diversity that makes it harder for them to recognize "self" from "other" when "other" is genetically so close to "self". I could certainly imagine a cancer jumping between a pair of identical twins - and all tasmanian devils are alarmingly closely related.

    The dog STD cancer may have similar roots. Pedigree dogs are well known to suffer from a lack of genetic diversity - and we inbreed them to a crazy degree.

    What's more of a concern is that we know that some forms of cancer are caused by viral infections - clearly the original virus could get transmitted - and the net effect would be of a transmissible cancer. THAT is a major concern.

        -- Steve

    --
    www.sjbaker.org
  34. Re:human papillomavirus by Gilgaron · · Score: 1

    No, the contagious cancer is genetically related to each other instance. Cancers generated via virus in two different individuals will be as distantly related as the individuals.

  35. Be Afraid! by edibobb · · Score: 1

    Be Afraid! You need the government to protect you!

  36. We've known this for a long time. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

    Feline leukemia virus is certainly contagious among cats, so there's no reason to believe that other viruses can't transmit cancer as well.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  37. Still waiting for.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Eventually, someday, someone will discover the cancer that destroys cancer....
    Only a cancer can catch it, and it will have to be spreadable through sex... by the host cancers host...

    Then we will all be trying to catch and spread it... assisting the cancers cancer propagation... LOL...

  38. Mr T-cell by NewYork · · Score: 1

    Boosting the immune system to fight cancer;
    http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21693185-boosting-immune-system-fight-cancer-mr-t-cell

    --
    Casteism