恐龙也会得癌症?

科学家发现除了人类其它很多动物都可能会患上癌症，而且还发现生活在距今6500万年前的恐龙也有癌症。

如果你原本认为癌症只会出现在人类身上，或者它只是一种现代疾病，那么你需要从新审视一下这个问题了。科学家不仅发现其它很多动物患有癌症，而且还发现生活在距今6500万年前的恐龙也有癌症。考虑到能够通过化石来了解古代癌症，科学家用便携式X光仪对700个博物馆标本近1万件恐龙脊椎骨进行了扫描。

If you think that cancer is only found in humans, or that it's a modern disease, think again. Scientists have not only found cancer in many other animals, they have found it in dinosaurs that lived more than 65 million years ago. Wondering if fossils could tell us something about ancient cancer, scientists traveling with a portable x-ray machine scanned ten-thousand dinosaur vertebrae of over 700 museum specimens.

经过扫描的恐龙化石包括许多我们比较熟悉的恐龙，比如剑龙，三角恐龙和暴龙。另科学家十分惊奇的是，仅有一组恐龙是癌症的受害者——它就是鸭嘴龙。研究人员在97个恐龙的尾骨里发现了29个良性肿瘤块。它们大多是血管瘤或是脉管瘤。

These included many popular dinosaurs such as Stegosaurus, Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus. Much to their surprise, they found that only one group suffered from cancer-the hadrosaurs, or “duck-billed” dinosaurs. 29 benign tumors were found in the tail bones of 97 animals. These were mostly hemangiomas or tumors of the blood vessels.

医生们在今天的人类身上也发现了这类肿瘤。在一个爱德蒙托龙身上还发现了恶性肿瘤。为什么鸭嘴龙会患上癌症，而不是其它的恐龙呢？这一点科学家也不得而知。科学家认为，如果鸭嘴龙存活的时间很长，那么它们患癌症的几率会很大，但它们存活的时间相对较短。这些25英尺长的草食动物需要吃很多东西，因此科学家把它们的饮食作为另一个考虑因素。

Doctors find the same type of tumors in humans today. One Edmontosaurus also had a malignant tumor. Why did duck-Billed dinosaurs have cancer and not the others? Scientists aren't sure. They thought that if hadrosaurs were long-lived, they would have a greater chance of developing cancer, but they lived relatively short lives. These twenty-five foot long herbivores needed plenty to eat, so diet was another thing scientists considered.

也许罪魁祸首是针叶树。鸭嘴龙要吃很多针叶树叶，这些针叶树确实含有已知的致癌物。但问题是，其它吃针叶树的恐龙并没有患同样的癌症。鸭嘴龙的癌症病因至今还是个谜，但恐龙化石帮助我们揭开了隐藏了百万年之久的秘密. 谁知道它们还会揭示什么呢?

Maybe conifers were to blame. Hadrosaurs ate plenty of them and they did contain known carcinogens. The trouble is, other conifer eaters didn't exhibit the same cancer. The cause of hadrosaur cancer remains a mystery today, but dinosaur fossils are helping unlock secrets of diseases millions of years old. Who knows what else they'll reveal.

2013-06-28

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