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Published online 3 December 2007 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2007.318

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Skin cream tackles skin cancers in mice

Compound acts by rejuvenating ‘the guardian of the genome’.

Heidi Ledford

A skin cream that can hyperactivate the body's natural DNA repair mechanisms has been shown to protect mice from skin cancer, and to reduce the growth of cancers already present. If the compound does the same for humans, it could one day be added to sunscreen as a cancer-fighting ingredient.

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  • Is this guy for real???? "Religious" and racial rants like that have no place on a science-based forum. Thanks, Heinz E. Hoffmann

    • 04 Dec, 2007
    • Posted by: heinz hoffmann

  • White dogs, guinea pigs and rabbits suffer skin cancer more so than black dogs, guinea pigs, and rabbits. Does this suggest God hates white dogs, guinea pigs and rabbits ? At one time, all humans were probably black. Those that migrated northwards from sun-drenched African climes to sun-deprived northern climes evolved as whites. The combination of black skin and lack of adequate sunlight precipitated Vitamin D deficiency - a very serious condition. White skin is therefore an environmental adaptation to black skin and inadequate sunlight/vitamin D. This same adaptation is the cause of sunburn in whites that subsequently 'return' to climates closer to their African origins. God might 'punish' certain human activity - but it has more to do with straying from evolutionary origins than particular human behaviours - as 'bad' as that may be. Despite the beliefs of deluded fanatics, history and our own experience teaches us human behaviour tends to have personal and social consequences - more so than exogenously spiritual ones. For some, the gap between 'belief' and reality is of cosmic proportions. Speaking of which, God's universe is only so diverse, complex - and amazingly beautiful - as the mind that views it, and the size of the pin-hole it is viewed through. Pete

    • 04 Dec, 2007
    • Posted by: P Grange