I was just discussing this exact topic with a geneticist friend of mine about 15 minutes ago. Small world.
One thing it does prove is that the problem of cancer suppression has been solved before. By evolution. That should give researchers a bit of hope at least.
Edit: He happens to think the linked hypothesis in the article is "bullshit."
Well, whales live under the water and most mammals have fur, so perhaps they are protected from the cancer causing sun more than humans. Elephants have thick protective skin.
Plus, humans tend to be closer to carcinogens like pesticides than other animals. Those deer in scandanavia are also herbivores...
It seems like they aren't limiting their variables enough. If they really wanted to determine the correlation between size and cancer, they'd need to use different sizes of the same species. What is the control group?
The sun is a cause of cancer, but not the only or even a primary cause. The real "cause" of cancer is cell mutation, which can be triggered by sun, chemical exposure, or simply sheer random chance -- part of the thesis of this article is that, since whales have so many more cells, the "random chance" type would be more likely to happen. And one tumor is enough to kill us, so why not whales? That's the question they're asking.
I may be mistaken, but I read the enzymes that allows cancer (and HIV) to continuously replicate unlike normal cells that die - may be a way to drastically reduce aging if engineered into human DNA.
You mean telomerases? Perhaps, but that also would probably increase cancer rates, as our own DNA copying enzymes would not have been increased in accuracy.
One thing it does prove is that the problem of cancer suppression has been solved before. By evolution. That should give researchers a bit of hope at least.
Edit: He happens to think the linked hypothesis in the article is "bullshit."