Cancer tumours could help unravel the mystery of the Cambrian explosion

Could tumours help us explain the explosion of life of Earth? Scientists have typically explained the period of history when large animal species became much more diverse very quickly as the result of the planet's rising oxygen levels. But my colleagues and I have developed a new idea that the change might have started within animals' own biology, based on evidence from proteins found in tumours. It wasn't until animals developed these proteins that they could take advantage of the oxygen and start diversifying.