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Duck-Billed Dinosaurs Suffered From Cancer
Polyploid Pimp writes "Nature reports a study by Bruce Rothschild of NEOUCOM about cancer in dinosaurs. Rothschild's group X-rayed 10,000 bones of over 700 museum specimens across North America. They found that only one group, the hadrosaurs or duck-billed dinosaurs got cancer. They hypothesize the cancer may be due to the dinosaurs presumed diet of conifers, which contain a number of known carcinogens. Additionally, this group of dinosaurs is thought (by some people) to have been warm blooded, which may have increased their cancer risk. They cite as support for conducting their study that understanding the causes and rates of cancer in other animals may provide insight into human cancers. I find it an interesting story as it demonstrates another use for museum specimens outside of their original collection purposes, and represents (to me at least) one reason to keep funding them, since you never know how the material may be used in the future."
Come on, everybody knows dinosaurs got cancer from smoking. Duh.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
Sniffing volcanic gas is stupid!
The classic essay on "worse is better" is either misunderstood
X-raying bones the way this guy does on the picture doesn't seem very safe to me. In hospitals, X-ray operations are protected by leaded windows or aprons (sp?)... Studying dinos causes cancer ;-)
AFAIK we only have bones (and fossilized ones at that, which don't really contain the origional bone), and not the rest of the dinosaur to examine. So are they willing to say no type of cancer in all those others, or just no bone cancer?
They didnt even have artificial colors or flavors, and they still got cancer!
The state of California has determined under Proposition 65 that being warm-blodded is hazardous to one's health. All warm-blooded individuals are hereby ordered to evacuate the State by April 2007.
I wish I could convice my parent company that they need to keep funding our office because they cannot predict what benefit we may be in the future! I bet there's more than one VC based company thinking the same thing.
What? Is that a paleontological term, or just a british one?
Honestly, someone should teach the British to speak English. ;)
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
How do we know what is carcinogens for dinosaurs. Thay could have quite a differnet digestion system from ours and current animals. What irritates our stomach could be healthy to dinosaurs.
This is getting old.
I had no idea ducks were around in the age of the dinosaurs! What service were they providing and how did the billing system work? Why was it that only the dinosaurs being billed by the ducks were susceptable to cancer? How do we know now which dinos were indeed being billed by the ducks? Should we be avoiding ducks now? If I am over on my payments to a duck, should I be worried about cancer? Alternatively - Why are they called duck-billed dinos? surely they had the bills before ducks did, therefore making ducks dinosaur-billed waterfowl. Or were the dinos with those bills the original ducks, hence the name? Are there other kinds of non-duck bills, I can't recall any, so why not just call them bills? Is this just one big illusion by a clever guy called William? Are geese and swans duck-billed? Do they know, if so how do they feel? Is it art?
unless it is benign most of the time having vunerability to cancer (I would think) would end a species long before it had a chance to exist for millions of years.The theory of survival of a species is pretty tough to major faults. A baby elephant (chuckle)born with one leg shorter does not start a herd of elephants with the same likness it gets eaten. If the food of a duck bill hurts the duckbill it seem to me like a couple of generations before the end. X-raying rocks that look like bones can tell a lot but it seem like a jump to cancer is to soon. Perhaps for protection the baby duckbills were hatched on a ledge then had to hop down resuluting in a high percentage of minor fractures. There is a species of water fowl (actually I think they are ducks)that puah their (too small to learn to fly) young from the protecting hights down small(Moss and grass covered) cliffs and rocky paths, the young bounce like rubber balls and most of them make it (fox and wolves get a few)perhaps some/most of them have small fractures that would show up in their bone structures as adults.
I eat my grapes at room temperature, cuz the cold ones hurt my teeth
They should have gone vegan, and they'd still be alive today.
The idea that susceptibility to cancer would eliminate a species is flawed. Most of the time cancer only shows up after the reproductive years are past. Indeed, an individual that does develope cancer before reproducing will be eliminated from the population.
I see the point you make, thanks for your reply.
I eat my grapes at room temperature, cuz the cold ones hurt my teeth
Lord of the Rings has...
The Ent-Moot!