Luis Prada in Vice:
The scientific world has known for some time now that bats are impossible. They can live up to 25 years (some, way, way longer) and they rarely develop cancer. That is especially impressive considering how cancer is something that is almost guaranteed to happen to anything that makes it to the farthest reaches of old age. Why, though, is something we’ve never fully understood. But, according to new research from scientists at the University of Rochester, we might finally be gaining a clearer understanding of a bat’s long life and cancer resistance.
The team, led by biologists Vera Gorbunova and Andrei Seluanov, found that bats are operating with beefed-up versions of a gene we humans also have, called p53. This tumor-suppressor gene regulates apoptosis, aka cell death. The bat version of it is one tough bastard, able to swat away cancer like it was a bothersome fly. Little brown bats even have two copies of it, making them natural-born cancer killers.
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