Nature, perhaps, has all the answers for modern-day maladies. One of the biggest mysteries in biology is known as Peto’s Paradox, which essentially means the bigger an animal is, the more cells it has. Consequently, there are more DNA those cells need to copy as they divide. This also means more chances of DNA mutations, and since a buildup of mutations is one of the main causes of cancer, large animals should, in theory, get cancer more often and should be dying young.

But, that ‘s not what happens. A team of international scientists has unravelled how the bowhead whale, the longest-living mammal on Earth, can survive over 200 years and rarely develop cancer . The study published in Nature (November 2025) offers the clearest genetic explanation so far for this extraordinary longevity.

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