New Delhi, April 17 -- Cancers are real biological cheats. Whereas most of the cells in a healthy animal's body get along by following the same set of genetic rules, cancer cells shamelessly ignore them. Healthy cells, for example, can replicate themselves only about 50 times before shutting down. Cancer cells, by contrast, carry a mutation that allows them to divide indefinitely. But recent work has revealed an entirely new level of oncological shenanigans. It now appears that many cancer cells have also stopped obeying Mendel's laws of inheritance, explaining why many cancers are able to evolve resistance to chemotherapy drugs at seemingly supernatural rates.

These laws, worked out in the 19th century by Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian f...