Media exaggeration #39,282,347,282,374 (Score 1)

The description of this research is completely misleading. These mice are not resistant to cancer in general - they (direct quote from the paper) "possess a unique autosomal dominant trait that allows them to survive challenges with aggressive mouse cancer cells". This is an important distinction. These mice have been bred to withstand implantation with specific foreign tumour cells (called S180) - basically a laboratory model for tumour growth. Nowhere does it say that these mice are more or less susceptible to developing cancer the old fashioned way by exposure to carcinogens, etc. If you blasted these bad boys with UV or gave them a good dose of tobacco smoke, they would still get cancer. Shoot them up with S180 tumour cells, and they won't take. Big leap from one to the other - but there's no chasm of logic that the media can't cross for a good headline.