Q 01/05

Which animals carry 20 copies of a tumour-suppressor gene that humans have once, which may help explain Peto's paradox?

A) Elephants

B) Blue whales

C) Giraffes

D) Hippos

Answer · why

A) Elephants

Elephants' cells self-destruct far more readily than ours when their DNA is damaged, which may be why an animal so huge and long-lived rarely dies of ...

Q 02/05

Which Australian marsupial became endangered through a contagious facial cancer passed on by biting?

A) Red kangaroo

B) Common wombat

C) Eastern quoll

D) Tasmanian devil

Answer · why

D) Tasmanian devil

Tasmanian devil tumour cells pass from animal to animal as living grafts, hiding from the new host's defences so that it rarely rejects them; most dev...

Q 03/05

The first chemotherapy drugs, tested on lymphoma patients at Yale in 1942, came from which First World War weapon?

A) Chlorine gas

B) Mustard gas

C) Phosgene

D) Tear gas

Answer · why

B) Mustard gas

Mustard gas left soldiers short of white blood cells, so Yale pharmacologists tried a chemical cousin on a man with advanced lymphoma; his tumours mel...

Q 04/05

Pierre Curie kept a sample of which element against his arm for ten hours, and the burn suggested a tumour treatment?

A) Polonium

B) Uranium

C) Radium

D) Thorium

Answer · why

C) Radium

Radium burned Curie's skin so badly that the wound took months to heal, and in 1901 a French dermatologist began treating patients' skin lesions with ...

Q 05/05

In 1775 Percivall Pott tied scrotal cancer to soot lodged in the skin of which workers, the first occupational cancer?

A) Coal miners

B) Blacksmiths

C) Chimney sweeps

D) Lamplighters

Answer · why

C) Chimney sweeps

Chimney sweeps' apprentices were boys small enough for narrow flues, who often climbed them naked and caked in soot; in 1788 Parliament barred sweeps ...