A baby turtle struggles over sand dunes on its way to the ocean at Mapoon, Cape York.
Tasmanian devil genome mapping may help humans too
Tasmanian devils -- popularized by Looney Tunes' fierce cartoon character "Taz" -- are carnivorous marsupials the size of a small dog. The facial tumor disease has ravaged the wild population, confined to Australia's island state of Tasmania, since being discovered in the mid-1990s.Scientists believe that unless help is found, the wild population could be extinct within several decades.
But the mapping carried out by researchers led by Janine Deakin found that, at the genetic level, the tumors evolve very slowly, making it easier to study them -- and, possibly, circumvent them.
In addition, this may offer an unusual chance to study how human cancers develop, Deakin added.
"Because we find the devil tumor is evolving so slowly, we can use that as a model to look at cancers in humans. It is a bit more like slowing down the whole process in human cancers," she said.
"In human cancers the change happens so rapidly we don't have a chance to look into
An Australian scientist has ruffled the feathers of Kiwis by suggesting one of the country's most endangered birds is not worth saving. New Zealand has spent millions of dollars trying to bring its beloved kakapo, a large flightless parrot,
According to the latest information, about a fifth of the world's known mammals, a third of the amphibians and more than a quarter of the reptiles are endangered. An estimated 17500 out of about 50000 known species are threatened.
The Malayan Tiger (Panthera tigris jacksoni) an endangered subspecies of tiger found in the forests of Malay Peninsula, southern tip of Thailand and Peninsular Malaysia, is one of the many featured animals worth