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Xiao Tian: 2 ideas worth knowing

2 ideas from Xiao Tian, each explained in a minute and credited to the original work. Free on Savvy.

• This wrinkly rodent barely ages and almost never gets cancer

  Naked mole rats live up to 30 years — roughly ten times longer than similarly sized rodents — while showing little decline in health, fertility or metabolism as they age. Their tis…

  — Xiao Tian, Andrei Seluanov & Vera Gorbunova et al., High-molecular-mass Hyaluronan Mediates the Cancer Resistance of the Naked Mole Rat

• This rodent almost never gets cancer and barely feels most kinds of pain

  Naked mole rats live far longer than their body size would predict, up to 30 years, and researchers have struggled for decades to induce tumors in them even deliberately. Their tis…

  — Xiao Tian et al., High-molecular-mass hyaluronan mediates the cancer resistance of the naked mole rat

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