
Fossil evidence reveals that cancer in humans goes back 1.7M years - Hooke
https://theconversation.com/fossil-evidence-reveals-that-cancer-in-humans-goes-back-1-7-million-years-63430
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Odenwaelder
Cancer is a fundamental dread of all higher multicellular life. It has always
existed and will always exist.

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M_Grey
It may not always exist, but what it would take to drive it out of our species
would be no less than either incredibly sophisticated (not to mention ongoing)
genetic engineering, very good nanotech that can intelligently monitor and
control the process of division, or I suppose something like the "AutoDoc"
from Larry Niven's 'Known Space' works.

It's all very much science fiction now, but "always" is a long time. Still, I
would place bets on our civilization taking it on the chin before we beat
cancer entirely.

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mwfunk
Surely cancer has always been a threat, it's just that in more recent
centuries or millennia humans have achieved long enough lifespans to actually
see its effects. Nowadays we live long enough to actually see the results of
accumulated transcription errors as our cells regenerate (every 7 years I
think?), which is basically the root cause of cancer.

Things like carcinogens or radiation make those errors more likely and can
cause fatal cancer to occur sooner, but even with otherwise perfect health and
perfect bodies, my understanding is that we'd all die from cancer eventually
(with a long life, but not that much longer than what we enjoy today).

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lalos
Even plants have cancer, from what I understand if it has some kind of cell
tissue it can deviate to cancer.

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joneholland
But I thought it was from red meat, Aspartame and GMOs.

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lagudragu
These are factors that indirectly increase the probability of cancer occurring
in your body. There is always a small chance your body would develop cancer.

