Galapagos giant tortoises are long-lived in part because their cells are surprisingly sensitive to certain forms of stress. As well as informing research into human medicine, the finding reveals how animals have evolved different ways to resist cancer and ageing.

“There’s lots of different ways to get to a large body and a long, healthy lifespan,” says Vincent Lynch at the University at Buffalo, New York.

We would expect large animals to be more susceptible to cancer because they have a greater number of cells, each of …

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