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Why plants don’t die from cancer
- simonebrunozzi 7y agoMost relevant paragraph: > Plants, however, develop in a much more flexible and organic way. Because they can’t move, they have no choice but to adapt to the circumstances in which they find themselves. Rather than having a defined structure as an animal does, plants make it up as they go along.
- HarryHirsch 7y agoThe relevant paragraph is actually this: And while radiation and other types of DNA damage can cause tumours in plants, mutated cells are generally not able to spread from one part of the plant to another as cancers do, thanks to the rigid, interconnecting walls surrounding plant cells.
- killjoywashere 7y agoPlants also lack a closed circuit circulatory system designed to accommodate autologous cells. So not only can the cells not get out of their walls, there wouldn't be much of anywhere to go if they did.
- jonhendry18 7y agoIn order for a cancer-like mutation to kill a plant it would probably have to cause mechanical damage. Tumors completely circling the trunk of a tree might have an effect like girdling the tree and kill the tree. A tumor growing in the center of a stem might compress the xylem and phloem enough to choke them off. This kind of fatality happens with humans, too, even if the cancer doesn't spread beyond the origin site.
- mehta_rohan 7y agoMaybe this has some weigth> "the nuclear accident was far less destructive to the local ecosystem than we were. In driving ourselves away from the area, we have created space for nature to return."
- saalweachter 7y agoDerailing, it irks me to see plant growth described as "more organic" than animal growth.
- phorkyas82 7y agoSimilarly I always feel little stitches from rhetoric use of the perceived degree of organicity a thing possesses in contrast to another. It's such a vague metaphor. I guess what usually counts as more organic is: - stuff that decomposes, is not ignored by destruents and stinks - stuff that is complex and semi-random, no central, overall plan So maybe it's the last point. For an animal you need a thorough layout, like for a cathedral (but, well there are also Gaudí's which aimed to be more "organic" - all these metaphors are so messy, maybe natural language is too organic)
- Waterluvian 7y agoThis sounds like a super villain premise but nuclear meltdown sounds like a very effective way to forcibly create a wildlife sanctuary.
- devoply 7y agoI was thinking, humans are worse than nuclear radiation for life. Maybe a more effective way to sell nuclear power... hey at least it's not humans.
- ianai 7y agoOr make the human the power source? Jobs for everybody! Just have humans pedal a generator for a living. It’d require lots and lots of people and it’d solve our obesity problem.
- nicwilson 7y agoIt is, case in point Chernobyl.
- mcguire 7y agoAnd the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River and the Savannah River site in South Carolina.
- agumonkey 7y agoAnother point to replace fossil fuel by nuclear plants. And cheaper since they don't have to be safe
- amelius 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening
- ryanmercer 7y ago99% Invisible had a podcast on this a couple years ago https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/atom-garden-eden/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/atom-garden-eden/
- echelon 7y agoPlants absolutely can and do get cancer! Agrobacterium grows in the tumorous gall tissues in trees. They use these growths to multiply and trick the host to upregulate the nutrients for tumor and bacterial proliferation. These tissues then rot and bring the tree down with them. Agrobacterium is frequently used in the lab to induce pluripotency or do gene injection.
- smt88 7y agoWhile this is interesting info, it's seemingly unrelated to the article. The article is explaining why random DNA damage doesn't cause cancer in plants like it does in some animals.
- echelon 7y agoWhile agrobacterium directed growth is a leading cause of plant tumors, the mechanism is one of positive feedback: plant hormones, xylem, etc. are upregulated in tumorous growths, causing them to grow faster. I'm not a botanist, but I'd be surprised if these didn't arise spontaneously due to random events. While it's true that plants grow much differently than animal tissues, and that the rate of spontaneous cancer development is much greater in animals as a consequence, it is factually incorrect to say that plants don't die from cancers. We must also remember that a large number of human cancers are promoted by infectious agents.
- pugworthy 7y agoI was going to say that in my ignorant perspective, galls and other such growths sure remind me of cancer.
- n4r9 7y agoGalls are normally caused by external chemical influence (e.g. chemicals being injected by an insect) rather than internal DNA change.
- nitwit005 7y agoThe headline is "Why plants don't die from cancer", rather than "Why plants don't get cancer". It's just suggesting that it tends not to kill plants.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago"Plants don't die from cancer" for the same reason "plants don't scream": These are human created concepts that are rooted in humanocentric mental models and plants fail to conform to our conceptual framework. It's much the way sexism, racism etc work. Reality: Plants give off a pulse when attacked. Human ears don't "hear" it, so we don't count it as "screaming." They also communicate chemically with nearby plants when they get infested with hostile insects. You could say they put out the word and nearby plants of the same species act to protect themselves.
- mpoteat 7y agoPlants are quite alien compared to us it seems.
- n4r9 7y agoI don't think this is about anthropocentrism. Death and cancer are reasonably well-defined concepts across a vast range of species. Plants do get cancers, it's just nowhere near as fatal as it is for humans.
- DoreenMichele 7y agoTitle of the piece: Why plants don’t die from cancer. If the title were "Why cancer is nowhere near as fatal in plants as in humans," then your rebuttal would hold water. But that's not the title, so it has no bearing on my critique of the actual title.
- n4r9 7y agoForgive me if I'm being ignorant or pedantic. Is your criticism that the title fails to clarify that it's using generalised notions of death and cancer? I personally found that I automatically translated the title to > Why DNA mutations associated with abnormal division of cells in plants do not correlate with high fatality rates This was surprising to me because a priori I didn't see why plants should cope with abnormal growth any better than humans. This made the question intriguing. The explanation that plant cells are designed so that dead cells can be quickly replaced and that cells are surrounded by rigid walls was gratifying in a way that "question is too anthropocentric" isn't.
- agumonkey 7y agoIs it known why plant cell structure don't ever detach ? even accidentally. They have tube so "technically" something could move, if it breaks from the ~ECM
- isolli 7y agoRelated [0], large animals seldom get cancer, at least at rates much lower than humans, which is surprising considering how many more cells they have (each of which has a certain probability of becoming cancerous). The assumption is that, as these animals grew larger, evolutionary pressure selected genetic traits that help counter cancer. [0] https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/06/29/in-fighting-cancer-look-to-what-other-animals-do https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/06/29/...
- Retric 7y agoHuman vision goes years before our cancer rates spike. We are essentially living past our primitive life expectancy until something fails which is very recent and evolution has had little time to catch up to this. At a nuts and bolts level cell volume is less indicative of cancer as interfaces like skin, lungs, and intestines are vastly more likely to get cancer than most other tissues. Early cancers are often the result of mutations during growth from a single cell which is closer to log(volume) vs simple volume in terms of risks.
- fpoling 7y agoIt is only ability to focus that goes down so for a person without myopia only near vision is affected. This is still bad as it affects the gatherer part of hunter-gazerer society, but it does not imply that evolution has not tried to optimize vision for people over 40 years old. They still can spot a lion far away.
- Retric 7y agoQuite a bit breaks down with age including a massive reduction in night vision. https://www.allaboutvision.com/over60/vision-changes.htm https://www.allaboutvision.com/over60/vision-changes.htm This might not seem like a major issue to us, but would be if trying to walk around by starlight at night.
- fpoling 7y ago
- pvaldes 7y agoTechnically plants die from cancer, is just that what we call cancer in plants is different that what we call cancer in animals. Plants can stand better mutations than animals because they have a clonal structure and asexual reproduction. There are "bricks" in this structure called "leaves", "roots" or "stems between nodes", repeated again and again in the entire creature. Mutations lead often to stunted growing, thus health clones just overgrow and kill the damaged parts. They have an autoprune system also.
- corey_moncure 7y agoI was going to guess it's because they don't have a vascular system that pumps cells around throughout all corners of their body.
- dractori 7y agohttps://www.britannica.com/science/vascular-system https://www.britannica.com/science/vascular-system
- known 7y agoP53 gene orders LIF6 gene to kill cancer cells in Elephants https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4858328/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4858328/
- lelima 7y agoI read the article with the voice of "David Attenborough". It was an amazing experience compared with my own voice.
- lordleft 7y agoI found this strangely moving. The resilience of life in face of human error & arrogance.
- pavel_lishin 7y agoInteresting that this was one of the most popular questions on Reddit's r/askscience subreddit two days ago; I wonder if PBS editors also trawl there for interesting topics. https://old.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/c6pjr3/why_do_plants_never_get_cancer/ https://old.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/c6pjr3/why_do_p...
- barberousse 7y agoI'd hypothesize many large firms track relevant subreddits
- thegabez 7y agoI have a hunch Costco purchasers view reddit for product reviews and ideas.
- johnnycab 7y agoSome tabloids blatantly lift articles from Reddit. One such subreddit decided it was enough and regularly take them to task over it. A note of caution, the link contains British humour and liberal use of sweary words. https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualUK/comments/8gtw49/spwm_finally_coughs_up/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualUK/comments/8gtw49/spwm_final...
- barberousse 7y ago/r/nba has also proven plagiarism in the past
- mtberatwork 7y ago> This article was originally published on The Conversation.
- malshe 7y agoThe original article was published on 21st June. https://theconversation.com/why-plants-dont-die-from-cancer-119184 https://theconversation.com/why-plants-dont-die-from-cancer-...
- myt6fore 7y agoThe question’s framing precludes the answer. Plants do die from environmentally distributed host subversion that can eventually become a systemic failure. We insist on clear interdisciplinary divisions throughout science, so by necessity, we anneal such siloing with “object with forces” paradigm (appropriated from physicist’s tool chest) which in turn feeds back into “world as a collection of objects” (set theory) outlook.
- agumonkey 7y agoTwo more questions: - most of plants nearby the nuclear facility are still radioactive right ? - did animal leaving around also improved radiation resilience ?
- LifeLiverTransp 7y agoThe last part got me thinking- if plants could reactivate dna used for radiation repairs- could the hightend co2 levels trigger other dormant dna, that allows for faster growth?
- jdnier 7y agoNotable quote from the article: > Harmful as it was, the nuclear accident was far less destructive to the local ecosystem than we were.