35. mitochondria … might once have been bacteria: L. Margulis, “Archaeal-eubacterial Mergers in the Origin of Eukarya: Phylogenetic Classification of Life,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 93, no. 3 (February 6, 1996): 1071–76. [http://www.pnas.org/content/93/3/1071]
36. suspected of playing a part in cancer: Jennifer S. Carew and Peng Huang, “Mitochondrial Defects in Cancer,” Molecular Cancer 1, no. 1 (December 9, 2002): 9; [http://www.molecular-cancer.com/content/1/1/9] and G. Kroemer, “Mitochondria in Cancer,” Oncogene 25, no. 34 (August 7, 2006): 4630–32. [http://www.nature.com/onc/journal/v25/n34/full/1209589a.html]
37. initiate apoptosis, the cellular suicide routine: Douglas R. Reed and John C. Green, “Mitochondria and Apoptosis,” Science 281, no. 5381 (August 28, 1998): 1309–12. [http://www.sciencemag.org/content/281/5381/1309]
38. Madeleine L’Engle: A Wrinkle in Time (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1962) and A Wind in the Door (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973).
39. a protein that is used as a biomarker: R. C. Bast Jr. et al., “Reactivity of a Monoclonal Antibody with Human Ovarian Carcinoma,” Journal of Clinical Investigation 68, no. 5 (November 1981): 1331–37. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7028788]
40. a blunt-edged tool: Charlie Schmidt, “CA-125: A Biomarker Put to the Test,” Journal of the National Cancer Institute 103, no. 17 (September 7, 2011): 1290–91. [http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/103/17/1290]
41. another invader from the Russian steppes: James A. Young, “Tumbleweed,” Scientific American 264, no. 3 (March 1991): 82–86.
42. triclopyr: “Dow AgroSciences Garlon Family of Herbicides,” Dow AgroSciences website. [http://msdssearch.dow.com/PublishedLiteratureDAS/dh_0130/0901b80380130084.pdf]
43. Maxwell’s demon: I have given only a very general description of the thought experiment devised in the nineteenth century by James Clerk Maxwell, which involved sorting hot and cold gas molecules in a closed chamber. For a collection of essays about the demon and the debate it inspired, see Harvey S. Leff and Andrew F. Rex, Maxwell’s Demon: Entropy, Information, Computing (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990).
EPILOGUE Joe’s Cancer
1. said that about 52,000 people: “Head and Neck Cancers,” National Cancer Institute website. [http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Sites-Types/head-and-neck]
2. “A melanoblastoma is such a swine”: Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Cancer Ward, trans. Nicholas Bethell and David Burg (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969), 202.
3. a concept called field cancerization: D. P. Slaughter, H. W. Southwick, and W. Smejkal, “Field Cancerization in Oral Stratified Squamous Epithelium: Clinical Implications of Multicentric Origin,” Cancer 6, no. 5 (September 1953): 963–68. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/13094644]
4. “a ticking time bomb”: Boudewijn J. M. Braakhuis et al., “A Genetic Explanation of Slaughter’s Concept of Field Cancerization Evidence and Clinical Implications,” Cancer Research 63, no. 8 (April 15, 2003): 1727–30. [http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/63/8/1727] For other references on field cancerization see Gabriel D. Dakubo et al., “Clinical Implications and Utility of Field Cancerization,” Cancer Cell International 7 (2007): 2; [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17362521] and M. G. van Oijen and P. J. Slootweg, “Oral Field Cancerization: Carcinogen-induced Independent Events or Micrometastatic Deposits?” Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention 9, no. 3 (March 2000): 249–56. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10750662]
5. William Crookes, the inventor: W. Crookes, “The Emanations of Radium,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 71 (January 1, 1902): 405–8. [http://archive.org/details/philtrans03789193]
6. unveiled it at a gala: Paul W. Frame, “William Crookes and the Turbulent Luminous Sea,” Oak Ridge Associated Universities website. [http://www.orau.org/ptp/articlesstories/spinstory.htm] The piece originally appeared in the Health Physics Society Newsletter.
7. spinthariscopes with the same engraving: In Robert Bud and Deborah Jean Warner, eds., Instruments of Science: An Historical Encyclopedia (New York: Garland, 1998), 572–73, Helge Kragh writes that the Crookes spinthariscope was produced in the summer of 1903 by several different instrument makers.
8. “a turbulent, luminous sea”: W. Crookes, “Certain Properties of the Emanations of Radium,” Chemical News 87, no. 241 (1903).
Index
acoustic neuromas
ACT UP (Aids Coalition to Unleash Power)
adenocarcinomas, 2.1, 3.1, 8.1
adipose
adolescents, cancer in, 3.1, 12.1
“Adriamycin and Posole for Christmas Eve,”
Adriamycin (doxorubicin), 8.1, 8.2, 8.3
aflatoxin, 1.1, 2.1, 3.1
Africa, 3.1, 7.1
African Americans, 7.1, 7.2, 8.1
agate
Agriculture Department, U.S.
Agrobacterium tumefaciens,
Agus, David
Alar
alcohol consumption
alcoholism, 2.1, 7.1, 11.1
benefits of
cancer risk from, 1.1, 2.1, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, epl.1
Allosaurus, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4
alpha particles, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3, epl.1
Alpharadin
Altman, Lawrence
Alzheimer’s disease, 9.1, 9.2
American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), annual meeting of
American Cancer Society
American Institute for Cancer Research
American Museum of Natural History
Ames, Bruce, 2.1, 5.1, 7.1
Ames test, 5.1, 7.1
anal cancer
anemia
aneurysmal bone cysts
angiogenesis, 4.1, 5.1, 6.1, 9.1, 9.2, 10.1, 12.1
angiostatin
aniline
animals, animal kingdom
cancers of, 1.1, 12.1
research conducted on, 1.1, 4.1, 5.1, 6.1, 7.1, 9.1, 10.1, 10.2, 12.1, 13.1, epl.1
size and cancer incidence in
anoikis
antifolates
anti-inflammatories
anti-oncogenes
antioxidants, dubious benefits of
Apatosaurus (Brontosaurus), 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4
apc gene
apoptosis, 5.1, 6.1, 8.1, 8.2, 9.1, 9.2, 11.1, 12.1, 13.1
aromatic amines
asbestos, 2.1, 7.1, 8.1
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashworth, Thomas Ramsden, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3
aspirin
atavisms
Austin, Robert, 13.1, 13.2
autoimmune response
autophagy
auxins
Avastin
Avery, Oswald
Axelrod, Robert
bacteria, 1.1, 2.1, 4.1, 9.1, 10.1, 13.1, 13.2
mitochondria as
penicillin and
salmonella
baldness, 6.1, 8.1, 11.1, 12.1
barium enemas
Barosaurus, 1.1, 1.2
basal cell carcinoma, 6.1, 12.1, 12.2, epl.1
Baselga, José
beauty marks
Becquerel, Henri
benzene, 2.1, 5.1, 7.1
beta rays, 11.1, 11.2
Beth Israel Deaconess
biopsy, 2.1, 6.1, 12.1, epl.1
birds
Birmingham, England
birth defects
Bishop, J. Michael
bisphenol A
Blackburn, Elizabeth
bladder cancer, 3.1, 4.1, 5.1, 7.1
Blakeslee, Sandra
blastema
blastocyst
blastomas
“blockbuster drugs,”
blood
as metastatic pathway, 4.1, 4.2, 5.1
blood sugar, see glucose
bone cancer, 1.1, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 11.1
in dinosaurs
bone marrow, 1.1, 3.1, 8.1, 8.2, 11.1
b
ones, 6.1, 12.1
Boveri, Theodor
brachytherapy
BRAF gene, 12.1, 12.2
brain
development of, 6.1, 12.1
metastasis to, 4.1, 4.2
brain cancer, brain tumors, 1.1, 2.1, 5.1, 6.1, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 12.1
in dinosaurs
microwaves and
breast cancer, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 5.1, 7.1, 7.2, 8.1, 9.1, 9.2, 12.1, 12.2
as common, 2.1, 3.1, 3.2, 12.1
decline in, 7.1, 7.2
in history, 3.1, 3.2
in men
metastatic route of
in nuns
public support and hype in
risk factors for, 2.1, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3
suspected epidemic of
Bridges, Calvin B.
Brody, Jane, 8.1, 10.1
Brothwell, Don
Bunge, Raymond G.
Burkitt’s lymphoma, 3.1, 5.1, 7.1
CA-125, 2.1, 13.1
cachexia
Canada, 1.1, 11.1
cancer
ambiguities in, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 4.1, 12.1
anthropological perspective on
in children, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 5.1, 7.1, 7.2, 11.1, 12.1, 12.2, 13.1
classification scheme for
complex and convoluted nature of, 10.1, 12.1
as contagious
debate over screening for
detection methods for, 2.1, 3.1, 12.1
as disease of genetic information, 5.1, 9.1
earliest evidence in genus Homo, 3.1
evolving historical insights on, 4.1, 10.1, 12.1
fear of, 11.1, 12.1
hallmarks of, 9.1, 9.2
historical vs. current rate of, 3.1, 7.1, 10.1
identifying characteristics of
incidence rates of, 7.1, 9.1, 13.1, 13.2
as incurable, 4.1, 12.1, 12.2
long term development of, 2.1, 10.1
mechanics of
metastatic, see metastasis
mortality rates from, 7.1, 9.1
oldest known case of, 1.1, 1.2
paradoxes of, 3.1, 5.1
perceived as contagious, 4.1, 5.1
as phenomenon
physiological safeguards against, 1.1, 1.2, 4.1, 5.1
politics and
predictions of epidemic of, 7.1, 7.2
in primordial creation
as a process
questions and hypotheses about
randomness of, 2.1, 2.2, 6.1, 7.1, 8.1, 11.1, epl.1, epl.2
rare types of, 1.1, 8.1, 8.2, 9.1, 10.1, 12.1, 12.2
recurrence of, 2.1, 7.1, 9.1, 10.1, 12.1, 12.2, epl.1
reducing the odds in, 8.1, 13.1, epl.1
risk factors for, see cancer risk factors
search for prehistoric origins of
selectiveness in incidence of, 1.1, 1.2
sources of
survival rates for, 4.1, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3, epl.1
terminology of, 3.1, 6.1, 6.2, 9.1, 11.1, 12.1
testing for
trivializing of, 12.1, 12.2
worldwide incidence of, 7.1, 11.1
see also Johnson, Joe; Maret, Nancy (author’s wife), cancer of; specific types of cancer
cancer clusters, 2.1, 7.1
Cancer Genome Atlas
“cancering,”
“cancer juice,”
cancer microenvironment
cancer prevention
dubious and contradictory information on
lifestyle in, 7.1, 10.1
cancer research, 1.1, 2.1, 7.1
ambiguities in
evolution of, 5.1, 9.1, 12.1, epl.1
monetary aspects of, 9.1, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3
Nancy’s personal
neglected types in
new perspectives on
pharmaceutical companies in, 9.1, 12.1
public support and hype in, 12.1, 12.2
on radiation
statistical, 12.1, 13.1
two factions in
see also specific studies
cancer risk factors, 7.1, epl.1
ambiguity about, 7.1, 10.1
demographic, 7.1, 7.2
endemic, 1.1, 1.2
environmental, 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 3.1, 7.1
genetic, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 7.1, 7.2
of lifestyle, 1.1, 2.1, 7.1, 7.2
metabolic
multiple and interconnected, 10.1, 12.1
overestimation of
radiation as, 3.1, 3.2, 5.1, 7.1, 7.2, 11.1
research into, 7.1, 10.1
socioeconomic
synergistic interactions in
trauma and injury as
see also carcinogens, carcinogenesis; specific risk factors
cancer stem cell theory
cancer treatments
ethical issues in
historical, 3.1, 10.1
Joe’s, see Johnson, Joe, treatment strategy for
limited effectiveness of, 9.1, 12.1
Nancy’s, see Maret, Nancy (author’s wife), cancer of, treatment strategy for
new perspectives on, 9.1, 13.1
predictions of cure in, 9.1, 9.2, 12.1, 13.1
shortcomings of, 2.1, 12.1
unnecessary, 2.1, 12.1
Cancer Ward (Solzhenitsyn), 12.1, 12.2, epl.1
canine transmissible venereal tumor
carcinogens, carcinogenesis, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 5.1, 5.2, 10.1, 13.1, epl.1
artificially produced, 7.1, 7.2, 10.1
bans on
carbon-based
in chemotherapy, 8.1, 8.2
environmental, 7.1, 7.2, 10.1
inconclusive hypothesis on
metabolic
naturally occurring, 2.1, 5.1, 7.1, 11.1, 11.2
origin of term
see also specific cancer risk factors
carcinomas, 1.1, 2.1, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 4.1, 5.1, epl.1
as most common cancer, 6.1, 6.2
Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 1.1, 1.2
Carson, Rachel
castration
cat scratch fever
“Causes of Cancer, The” (Doll and Peto), 7.1, 7.2
celebrities
celibacy
Cell,
cell adhesion molecules, 5.1, 6.1
“cell fate,”
cell invasion
cells
aerobic and anaerobic
aggressive multiplication of, 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 3.1, 3.2, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 7.1, 12.1
collaboration among
differentiation of, 4.1, 6.1, 6.2, 9.1
duplication errors in, 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 3.1, 5.1, 5.2, 7.1, 7.2, 8.1, 13.1
electricity and
evolving historical insights on
in mechanics of cancer
in metastasis
polarization in
precancerous, epl.1, epl.2
programmed death of, see apoptosis
cellular phones, 13.1, 13.2
Cepheid variables, 13.1, 13.2
cerebellum
cervical cancer, 5.1, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 10.1
cervix
Chase, Martha
Chemical Weapons Convention
chemotherapy, 2.1, 5.1, 7.1, 8.1, 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3, 12.4, 13.1, 13.2
alternatives to
Joe’s
Nancy’s, 8.1, 11.1, 11.2
negative effects of, 4.1, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5, 11.1, 12.1, epl.1
process of, 8.1, 11.1
resistance to, 8.1, 8.2, 9.1, 12.1
Chernobyl nuclear plant, 11.1
chickens
tumor research on
childlessness
cancer risk from, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 7.1, 7.2, 8.1, 10.1
of Nancy, 6.1, 11.1
children
cancer in, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 5.1, 7.1, 7.2, 11.1, 12.1, 13.1
deformities of, 6.1, 7.1
chimney sweeps, 5.1, 10.1, epl.1
chondroblastomas
chond
rosarcoma
Christmas
chromosomes, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 7.1
cigarettes, see smoking
circadian disruption
cisplatin, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, epl.1
Cleveland Museum of Natural History
clinical equipose
clones
CM 72656 (dinosaur bone)
coal tar, 5.1, 10.1, 10.2, epl.1
coffee, carcinogens in
cohorts
Cohort Study of Mobile Phone Use and Health (COSMOS)
colon cancer, 2.1, 4.1, 5.1, 7.1, 7.2, 9.1, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 12.1
colonoscopy
Colorado, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3
colorectal cancer, 2.1, 3.1, 3.2, 7.1
as common
risk factors for
colorectal polyps
conifers
“Contagious Cancer,”
contraceptives
cortisol
cosmology
creation theory, 6.1, 9.1, 9.2
Cretaceous period, 1.1, 1.2
Crick, Francis, 5.1, 9.1
Crookes, William
crown gall
CT scans, 2.1, 3.1, 3.2, 11.1, epl.1
Curie, Marie, 5.1, 11.1
Curie, Pierre, 5.1, 11.1
curies
Curran, Tom
cycads
cyclopamine, 6.1, 12.1
Cyclopes
cytokines
dacarbazine
Dana-Farber cancer center, 1.1, 12.1, 12.2
Darwinian evolution, 1.1, 4.1, 7.1, 9.1
cancer development and, 4.1, 7.1, 12.1, 13.1
David, A. Rosalie
Davies, Paul, 13.1, 13.2
DDT
Death Be Not Proud (Gunther)
demographics, and cancer risk, 7.1, 7.2
De Morbis Artificum Diatriba (Diseases of Workers) (Ramazzini)
Descartes, René
desmoplastic fibroma
developmental biology, 6.1, 9.1
Devonian period
diabetes, 2.1, 9.1, 10.1, 10.2
diet
in cancer prevention
cancer risk from, 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 10.1
dubious and inconclusive theories of, 1.1, 2.1, 7.1, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 11.1, 13.1
moderation in
in radiation therapy
differentiation, 4.1, 6.1, 6.2, 9.1
Dinosaur, Colo.
Dinosaur Hill
Dinosaur Journey Museum
Dinosaur National Monument, 1.1, 1.2
dinosaurs
cancer observed in, 1.1, 3.1
decline and extinction of, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3
Diseases in Antiquity (Brothwell)
dissection
The Cancer Chronicles Page 33