In an article published by PBS,
a fascinating aspect of the Chernobyl catastrophe was brought to light, which
was the effect that the radiation had on trees in the area. And, as it turns
out, trees can get cancer, especially the trees in Chernobyl because of the
amount of radiation they are exposed to. Radiation is not the only way in which
trees and other plants can get cancer, they can also get cancer via mutations
in their DNA, just like in humans and other animals. What I find particularly
interesting is that cancer is not as lethal in trees as it is in humans and
other animals. This
is due to two main reasons. The first reason is that trees do not have a true
circulatory system like humans have. Human circulatory systems contain cells
with specialized functions, but trees’ “circulatory systems” do not transport
cells, they transport nutrients, like in the form of sap. This means that it is
very difficult for the cancer cells to metastasize, meaning that the cancer
cannot spread to different regions of the tree nearly as easily as they can in
humans. The second factor also limits the cancer’s ability to metastasize, and
that is the plant cell well. Even in there was a true circulatory system in
plants, the cancer cells would not be able to just break off and spread to different
parts of the tree. The cancer cells are rather confined in that one location
due to the structure of the cell. Since the tree cancers have difficulty
spreading throughout the entirety of the tree, the cancer cells cannot cause
nearly as much damage as they can in humans.
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