When I hear of naked mole rats, I think of Rufus, the animated character from Kim Possible.
But it turns out the real rodents might be useful in cancer research. According to a recent 60-Second Science podcast, naked mole rats live in low-oxygen environments. The core of large tumors is also a low-oxygen environment, and so maybe studying naked mole rats can tell us something about cancer. So far researchers have found three genes in common between naked mole rats and cancer cells.
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