Contagious Cancer Found in Dogs

[Sir Richard F. Burton]

Dan East writes "Scientists in England have gathered definitive evidence that a kind of cancer in dogs, known as Sticker's sarcoma, is contagious (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/10/AR2006081001535.html). It is spread by tumor cells getting passed from dog to dog through sex or from animals biting or licking each other. Robin Weiss and his colleagues did genetic studies on the tumor cells from 40 dogs with Sticker's sarcoma, collected from five continents, which showed that all the tumor cells are clones of each other. The parent cell probably arose in a domesticated dog of Asian origin — perhaps a husky — hundreds of years ago, and perhaps more than 1,000 years ago. A similarly transmissible cancer has recently been discovered spreading through populations of Tasmanian devils."

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/11/1311230

[Mr. Peanut]

Wow. Never heard of that either.

[bigsky]

"Contageous dog tumor" is going to be right up there with my favorite derogatory phrases. It's not quite "Supperating syphylitic pustule", but like that phrase, it's "growing on me". Do something stupid in the passing lane on I-90 and I might just try it out on you.