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Published online 20 May 2008 | 453, 441 (2008) | doi:10.1038/453441f
News in Brief
Cancer forces Tasmanian devil onto endangered list
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Please note this is News in Brief, and so will be a short article.
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Donations are sought to support research into Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumour Disease. The website is: http://www.utas.edu.au/foundation/devil.htm The following is adapted from the website: The University of Tasmania, in partnership with the Australian Government and Tasmanian State Government, has launched the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program and Appeal to oversee the response to the disease and raise funds for vital research. The aim of the program is “to maintain the Tasmanian devil as an ecologically functional species in the wildâ€. University of Tasmania is assisting with research programs into all areas of the disease including transmission, immune responses and population modeling.
No doubt Al Gore will claim that this is yet another result of global warming ("allegedly").
Maybe not directly of global warming, but of habitat destruction for sure. With smaller population size, their genetic diversity decreases, which helps the spread of this peculiar cancer... CTVT, I believe.
Is the cancer caused by a virus?
I find that second comment to be irrelevant, inflammatory and small minded. Keep to the subject at hand, unless you have a valid question or something directed to understanding the topic at hand, don't post. There are plenty of websites devoted to the controversies of global warming. The cancer is thought to act like a tissue graft as per this article: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/104/41/16221
David Quammen wrote an interesting article about this (Contagious cancer: The evolution of a killer) in the April issue of Harper's Magazine this year.