Transmissible cancer-- You're kidding, right? Wrong.

They're not exactly cute and cuddly, but Tasmanian devils have their special place in the environment, and they're dying off fast.

You probably don't spend a lot of time worrying about Tasmanian Devils. I know I don't. In fact, I thought they were some kind of cartoon character until I saw a program about them on Animal Planet.
It turns out that these nasty little critters live on the Island of Tasmania and, after many years of doing just fine, are now endangered. Apparently this is not something new, but I just found out about it from an article in the New York Times.

Considering the rate at which species of mammals are becoming extinct, this is just more bad news. But the thing that absolutely floored me is what is killing Tasmanian devils. They have a form of transmissible cancer that manifests itself in tumors on their faces, and given how aggressive they are, they frequently pass it on to other devils by biting them in the face.

Did you know there was such a thing as transmissible cancer? I didn't. It turns out that least two other kinds of animals get transmissible cancer, dogs, mainly in tropical and subtropical climates, and Syrian hamsters. All of this concerns me, but, let's face it, it's only human to worry that such a cancer might occur in humans. There is some evidence that it does, which blows to smithereens the idea that human cancer isn't infectious. Lest you become too worried, it is a lot more likely that a Tasmanian devil will catch cancer from another devil than that a human will catch cancer from another human, but if you want something to take your mind off the economic crisis, this is just the thing.