LWN: Comments on "Beardless Bdale"

Beardless Bdale

mjg59 — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 15:05:35 +0000

In the general case, but given:

1) An immune system that isn't triggered
2) The ability to encourage blood vessel growth
3) Easy transmission of immortal cells

then cancer itself is transmissable. Human cancers have (to the best of our knowledge) failed to achieve these three, so we haven't seen anything similar so far. Tasmanian Devils live in a small and physically constrained ecosystem and so are fairly inbred, which limits their genetic diversity and thus ability to have immune responses to cells derived from near-identical organisms.

Contagious cancers

nix — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 13:29:22 +0000

This is not unique. There is a contagious cancer of dogs that's still
going: because it's non-lethal it's kept going more successfully, and is
still hopping from dog to dog perhaps a thousand years after its
progenitor died.

Yes, mammalian cell, you too can be an immortal unicellular organism.

Contagious cancers

corbet — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 02:42:41 +0000

Getting way off topic, but what the heck...

The way the guy explained it at the event, the cancers themselves are contagious. In particular, the tumor cells are not the victim's cells; they come from outside. The lack of genetic diversity in the devil population makes that sort of propagation possible. It's weird (and nasty) stuff.

Beardless Bdale

jd — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 02:13:18 +0000

The cancer is indeed a cancer, but cancers aren't in themselves contagious, so it's clear that the cancer is induced by a pathogen that can be transmitted. This is not that unusual. The bacteria that cause stomach ulcers are linked to inducing stomach cancer, and so on. In the case of Taz, there is a virus which is the transmissible agent. This then causes the cancer in the Devils with the virus. This is why the researchers were so interested in the immune response that some Devils gave to the virus. If the immune response was strong enough, then breeding programs might have been a possibility and vaccinations could have become a consideration. It turns out that the immune response isn't nearly strong enough.

Beardless Bdale

i3839 — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 01:30:19 +0000

The Tassie people I'm visiting think that it has something to do with some kind of poisonous stuff that's used by the forestry for one thing or the other, but I forgot the details.

Bdale looked a lot better with his beard intact. :-/

Beardless Bdale

nix — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 21:12:25 +0000

You call it a 'virus'. It isn't a virus, it's a cancer. Totally different
beasties.

They're in considerable trouble. The only way I can see to save them
involves moving some to another island and writing off those you leave
behind :(

Beardless Bdale

dmarti — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 20:38:11 +0000

If you do your blog in ikiwiki on git, you have a Virtual Beard that nobody can take away from you.

Beardless Bdale

jd — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:58:04 +0000

I've been monitoring the news outlets for stories on the Tasmanian Devil and it doesn't look good for them. They have a low variation in their DNA, there appears to be a very slight resistance but no actual immunity in a handful of cases, and the best the Australians have come up with is to build a gigantic fence keeping the infected population away from the known uninfected clusters. (Now all they have to do is teach Taz to read.)

This does assume, however, that they know where every Devil is, so that no infected ones are on the wrong side. It also assumes that, since the virus can be spread through saliva, that the fence will stop other methods of transmission.

From an ecological perspective, this is a problem that could exterminate all wild Tasmanian Devils and make re-instroduction via captive breeding programs extremely difficult. Those of us geeks interested in ecology thus care a lot about the situation from that perspective.

But it's not the only one. Trying to find a cure whilst trying to keep new infections from happening requires someone knowledgable on Game Theory and the Byzantine General's Problem. Trying to do so within the miniscule budgets ecologists get (especially in a recession) requires a genius at SIMPLEX and other optimization methods. Trying to maximize genetic diversity is another optimization problem (which Taz' to try and save, say by surgery). Trying to do all this in the timeframe left is going to take hefty computer resources (maybe a BOINC project?) and skillful coders.

Beardless Bdale

nix — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:30:49 +0000

Mature audiences only? :)

Beardless Bdale

ikm — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:03:03 +0000

This article should've been 'Subscribers only'

Beardless Bdale

kartik — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:10:06 +0000

/s/Beardless/Fearless too :P

Linus is the worst barber ever :-)

rvfh — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 12:15:31 +0000

Sorry to leave the comic note, but his skin hasn't seen the sunlight for a while, which explains why it's so white... He'd better be careful in the Australian summer!

Beardless Bdale

rvfh — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 12:13:16 +0000

"Beardless Bdale", isn't that the name of some Linux distribution? Ah, no, the one in B's was Breezy Badger... maybe in 9.5 years or so...

Sorry, couldn't resist...

Beardless Bdale

jhs — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:34:54 +0000

That's good news. I've been hearing about the Tasmanian Devil situation in some of my non-technical podcasts.

There is a very nasty infectious cancer that has killed out nearly half of the wild devil population. It's great to hear that the free software community is helping with this effort.

Devilish Linus

endecotp — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:13:02 +0000

Linus looks a bit devil-like himself in that last photo, don't you think?

Linus is the worst barber ever :-)

viiru — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 09:24:16 +0000

I noticed that too. Linus probably shouldn't quit his day job for a career in barbering...

Linus is the worst baber ever :-)

hummassa — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 09:19:29 +0000

In the second photo, not only is Bdale beardless, his face is also almost
skinless :-)

Beardless Bdale

tao — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 03:00:30 +0000

While there's probably some developers in Tasmania that would like some money, I suspect that the collection was to the "Tasmanian *Devil*" :)