In between mining Vespene gas and constructing additional pylons, gamers have been unknowingly learning about how cancer works, and maybe how to beat it.
Amid the frantic clicking and hot-keying that goes on in homes and internet cafes around the world, players of the immensely popular computer game StarCraft have been unknowingly gaining a working knowledge of cancer. But the insight into the illness depends on which of the three races in the game you play. The future-minded Terran speak to dreams of human expansion in space. The telepathic Protoss keep spirituality in a galaxy dominated by science. However, the last race—the all-consuming Zerg—is more than a horde of ravenous genetic abominations reminiscent of John Carpenter’s The Thing; they are fitting analogs for possibly the most dreaded ailment of all. Cancer is a Zerg rush of the human body. In form, function, and strategy, the Zerg of StarCraft were designed ...
