Re:xcuse me? (Score 1)

yeah, but apparently these HeLa cells are even more out of control than ordinary cancer cells. What makes them special is not that they are "immortal", but rather that they have a tendency to contaminate everything they come across. Again from memory: after they were taken from the patient and given a standard lookover just like every other cell sample taken from a cancer patient gets, apparently they were more or less left alone for a while in some sort of whatever it is scientists keep cell samples in, together with samples from other patients. Months (or years, I'm not sure) later, the Thing They Keep Cell Samples In was opened for some reason or other, and they found out *every* sample in the Thing had been contaminated by HeLa. That's when they found out HeLa was special.