Earliest cancer discovery
Researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, have made an important discovery that questions our understanding of why we get cancer.
“Recent studies on Egyptian mummies failed to identify traces of cancer, leading some researchers to suggest that it wasn’t present in the pre-modern world. This study falsifies that,” researcher Edward Odes said in a University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
The study shows evidence of a type of bone cancer in a more than 1-million-year-old toe bone found in South Africa. Researchers say it marks the earliest identifiable case of malignant neoplastic disease in an early human ancestor.
So cancer may not just be due to our modern lifestyles since it existed that long ago.