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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 ;-)
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.
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?