Nautilus

Cancer, the Consummate Traveler

People may call cancer cells all sorts of derogatory names, but homebody isn’t one of them. Born into tumor cells, they relocate to surrounding tissues when their original homes become a toxic mess under the stress of their own overcrowding, the assault of chemotherapy, or when conditions elsewhere seem better.

Some oncologists characterize the process of cancer’s spread throughout the body—called metastasis—as a kind of diaspora. And since 90

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