Cancer Schmancer

It has now been 38 years since the nuclear explosion in Chernobyl, a disaster that displaced over 300000 people from towns and cities nearby, that affected millions of Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians. The radioactive nature of the catastrophe meant that the local area could no longer be inhabited, and so to prevent anyone from being harmed, the “Chernobyl Exclusion Zone” was established, stopping unauthorised persons from getting too close to the site of the disaster. Now there are under 3000 people living within the 2600 square kilometres that once housed over 100000. Due to the absence of people, plants were suddenly allowed to grow, animals were free to roam, and so a new ecosystem developed, one with some very special wolves.

When I say special wolves, I don’t mean werewolves, those do not exist. Instead, I mean cancer-resistant (ish) wolves. Yes, you read that correctly, these wolves are cancer-resistant (ish)! Scientists from Princeton University noticed that the population of wolves was thriving in the exclusion zone compared to the population of wolves outside it. The population density of the radioactive wolves was 7 times higher than the density of wolves outside the zone. This was extremely weird seeing as wolves are the animals you’d expect to drop dead first from cancer since they consume the radiation from their prey alongside the general radiation in the environment.

The scientists measured the levels of radiation to make sure the wolves were actually exposed to cancer-causing levels, and they found that the areas they roamed were still extremely radioactive, leaving the wolves exposed to six times the legal limit for humans. They then took blood samples from the wolves to compare their genes to wolves far from the zone. The samples showed that the wolves had altered immune systems, and that the fastest-changing genes in the wolves were the ones that play a part in cancer response, implying there is a difference in how they handle cancer.

But there isn’t enough evidence yet to be sure if this genetic difference is enough to kill cancer. There are three explanations offered so far: either the wolves’ immune systems kill the cancer; they can simply now live with the cancer; there is no significant difference in how their bodies approach cancer and humans are just so destructive that we suppress the population of wolves naturally, and now that we’ve left them alone they’re allowed to thrive even if they get cancer.

Fun fact: It costs a billion dollars and takes five years to build a nuclear bomb from scratch.

A quote for the week:

“The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.” – Meditations, Marcus Aurelius