Posted on 06/11/2009 8:43:17 AM PDT by Scythian
Our large brains may make us cognitively superior to chimps, but, according to a new hypothesis, we could be paying a price for our sizable cerebrum: a higher rate of cancer.
Chimpanzees are thought to be the closest evolutionary relative to humans, and we share around 98 percent of our genes with these primates.
But for years, scientists have observed that chimps have a surprisingly low cancer rate compared to humans.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Or it could be because chimps don’t eat all the crap we eat.
Explains the lower incidence of cancer in Liberals...
Gee, ya think that maybe some other cause may be in play here? Like, perhaps, I'm just spitballing here, our diets are hugely different?????
Well, this is good news for most of those cackling old hens on The View. They should live forever.
Did they adjust for age? Cancer is largely a disease of old age. Most wild animals slow down when they get to what we would consider middle aged and are either eaten or unable to catch what they need to eat, so they die before they get to the age when most human cancer cases happen.
This is indeed Obama-class junk science.
There are compensations for everything.
That means that the government school system is actually reducing cancer risk by dumbing-down its students. Brilliant!
More recent studies say the number is around 90%. And when we are talking about 10% difference in literally billions of genes, that is a lot of difference.
Doesn’t matter, Cancer has nothing to do with genes but I hear what you’re saying
Our genes (DNA that codes for proteins) are 98% the same as a chimpanzee. We share over 99% of the same genes in common (i.e. if you find a gene in a human it is over 99% likely to be in a chimp as well, but the “same” gene will be around 2% different on average). Over the entire genome we are about 94% the same as chimpanzees (i.e. including both genetic and non-genetic DNA).
And you think you are smarter than a doctor and know how the body works?
Why are most cancers traced to genetic causes? Why do some genes predispose someone to getting cancer? Why is the p53 gene mutated into inoperability in about 50% of cancers?
I knew there was a good reason for heavy drinking! Woohoo!
I’ve had three cocker spaniels. All died as a result of cancer. Lovely dogs, but each was only as bright as it needed to be to find the food bowl. Think I’ll let this theory develop for a bit before i embrace it.
Cancer also takes a while to get going. Usually the body has to endure insults for a while before something goes wrong and creates tumors. Unless I’m quite mistaken, Chimps don’t live that long in the wild, and those that are born with early-onset cancers like leukemia probably die very quickly, so that they are underrepresented in the population. We, being the sentimental saps we are, go to great lengths to keep sick members of the species alive, where most others do not, and those members subsequently make up a larger percentage of the population.
Excellent points.
Considering how many of of our fellow citizens sit in front of the tube absorbing all that mindless drivel everyday, I’d say we’re well on the way to a cure.
I had a Doctor tell me at age 35 that I was over the hill. He said that as far as nature was concerned I had had time to reproduce and shepherd spawn to reproduction age and now was just a oxygen thief.
What he said drove me to a bar and I’ve never had the chance to thank him since.
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