> What's so special about somatic cells that makes them cancerous after so many divisions?
Nothing, actually. I'd rephrase the parent comment.
There is in fact a fixed (somewhat small) probability that replication ends up in a mutation. But looking at the continuous replication going on in our cells as a Bernoulli process, you can find a number N such that there is a probability of Q (say 99%) that a mutation happened before the Nth replication.
Nothing, actually. I'd rephrase the parent comment.
There is in fact a fixed (somewhat small) probability that replication ends up in a mutation. But looking at the continuous replication going on in our cells as a Bernoulli process, you can find a number N such that there is a probability of Q (say 99%) that a mutation happened before the Nth replication.