Posted on 01/03/2010 6:56:52 PM PST by nickcarraway
Researchers believe they have identified the source of fatal tumours that threaten to wipe out the wild population of Tasmanian devils.
Writing in Science, an international team of scientists suggest cells that protect nerves are the likely origin of devil facial tumour disease (DFTD). The disease is a transmissible cancer that is spread by physical contact, and quickly kills the animals. DFTD has caused the devil population to collapse by 60% in the past decade.
"To look more closely at the tumours' origin, we sequenced the genes that are expressed in this devil cancer and compared them with other genes that are expressed in other devil tissues," explained lead author Elizabeth Murchison, from the Australian National University in Canberra.
She told the Science podcast the team's findings delivered surprising results.
"We found that the tumours expressed genes that were normally only expressed by Schwann cells, which are cells that are found in the peripheral nervous system that protect nerves."
'Genetically distinct'
The researchers sampled 25 different tumours from all over Tasmania, the only place on the planet where the world's largest carnivorous marsupials are found.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Let me guess
1) Global warming
or
2) Bush’s fault
cell phones
Neither. But it gets worse. They get those facial tumors from BITES. And they bite each other in the FACE when they are MATING. 
Was that covered in Jennings’ seminar?
A ‘contact transmissible cancer” - just what might be able toreduce the population of Liberals.
;-)
OMG! You're funny!
.
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