
Why plants don’t die from cancer - tysone
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/why-plants-dont-die-from-cancer
======
isolli
Related [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/...](https://www.economist.com/science-and-
technology/2019/06/29/in-fighting-cancer-look-to-what-other-animals-do)

~~~
Retric
Human 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.

~~~
beefield
> . 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.

To my naive understanding of evolution, it has little incentive to fix
anything that breaks after reproduction age. So I would not expect evolution
to catch on cancer ever.

~~~
toxik
In particular for primates, the elderly help the community and this is
obviously beneficial for survival and reproduction.

~~~
crazydoggers
The elderly would have to specifically help their own grandchildren, not just
the community, for evolution to have an effect (otherwise you’re talking group
selection nonsense).

I’d imagine it’s debatable whether elderly grandparents past reproductive
years are helping their grandchildren be more reproductively successful.
Possible, but not a forgone conclusion by any means.

~~~
barry-cotter
Grandmothers increase their offspring’s genetic impact, for daughters by
increasing survival rates, for sons by increasing numbers of offspring.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmother_hypothesis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmother_hypothesis)

> The grandmother hypothesis is a hypothesis to explain the existence of
> menopause in human life history by identifying the adaptive value of
> extended kin networking. It builds on the previously postulated "mother
> hypothesis" which states that as mothers age, the costs of reproducing
> become greater, and energy devoted to those activities would be better spent
> helping her offspring in their reproductive efforts. It suggests that by
> redirecting their energy onto those of their offspring, grandmothers can
> better ensure the survival of their genes through younger generations.

~~~
bilbo0s
That's a hypothesis.

Again, reproduction is happening prior to any potential partner even knowing
of a grandmother in many places in the animal kingdom. Even for humans
actually.

So you're subscribing to the more adaptationalist line of reasoning for the
existence of menopause. Which is fine. But you should concede that fact. Many
others might subscribe to any of the other hypotheses for reproductive
senescence. I subscribe to the artifactualist line of reasoning. ie - people
just started living too long, and our bodies adapted for a 20-40 year life
span. But there are numerous other hypotheses out there, many of them every
bit as plausible as my artifactualist hypothesis. I only subscribe to the
artifactualist hypothesis because it is the hypothesis most in line with the
theory of evolution.

~~~
gowld
How long is too long? A woman is fertile through age 40 (and useful to care
for offspring for another 10-20 years), a man is fertile through age 80 (and a
genetically fit male would have valuable sperm long after his fitness showed
in his phenotype). Why would our bodies adapt for a 20-40 year life span?

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echelon
Plants 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.

~~~
nitwit005
The 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.

~~~
pvaldes
Is a nice headline, but is also a wrong one, as Echelon explained

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pavel_lishin
Interesting 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_p...](https://old.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/c6pjr3/why_do_plants_never_get_cancer/)

~~~
barberousse
I'd hypothesize many large firms track relevant subreddits

~~~
johnnycab
Some 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_final...](https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualUK/comments/8gtw49/spwm_finally_coughs_up/)

~~~
barberousse
/r/nba has also proven plagiarism in the past

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pvaldes
Technically 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
I 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
[https://www.britannica.com/science/vascular-
system](https://www.britannica.com/science/vascular-system)

~~~
gowld
Plant vascular system transports water and nutrients, not the plant's DNA.

~~~
pvaldes
Vascular system can transport also genetic matherial sometimes (and is a big
problem).

------
Waterluvian
This sounds like a super villain premise but nuclear meltdown sounds like a
very effective way to forcibly create a wildlife sanctuary.

~~~
amelius
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening)

~~~
ryanmercer
99% Invisible had a podcast on this a couple years ago
[https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/atom-garden-
eden/](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/atom-garden-eden/)

------
known
P53 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/)

------
simonebrunozzi
Most 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
The 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
Plants 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.

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myt6fore
The 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
Is 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

------
jdnier
Notable quote from the article:

> Harmful as it was, the nuclear accident was far less destructive to the
> local ecosystem than we were.

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agumonkey
Two more questions:

\- most of plants nearby the nuclear facility are still radioactive right ?

\- did animal leaving around also improved radiation resilience ?

------
lordleft
I found this strangely moving. The resilience of life in face of human error &
arrogance.

------
lelima
I read the article with the voice of "David Attenborough". It was an amazing
experience compared with my own voice.

------
DoreenMichele
"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.

~~~
n4r9
I 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
Title 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
Forgive 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.

~~~
DoreenMichele
You know, it's not hugely important.

Have a great day.

