Hallmarks, Becoming immortal

Professor Robert Weinberg explains how normal cells can only double a certain limited number of times; and cancer cells have to learn how to proliferate indefinitely, i.e, they have to become immortalized.

Educational standards - statements

  • Given adequate resources and an absence of disease or predators, populations of organisms in ecosystems increase at rapid rates. Finite resources and other factors limit their growth| AAAS#5D/M3
  • Populations can reach limits to growth. Carrying capacity is the maximum number of individuals that can be supported in a given environment. The limitation is not the availability of space, but the number of people in relation to resources and capacity of earth systems to support human beings.| NSES#F 2.3
  • Much can be learned about the internal workings of science and the nature of science from study of individual scientists, their daily work, and their efforts to advance scientific knowledge in their area of study.| NSES#G 3.1