The clams are dying . Since at least the 1970s , soft - shell scratch ( Mya arenaria ) from Canada to Maryland have been molest with a occult disease . This month , researchers announced that they ’d finally identified the disease : clam leukemia .
Clam leukemia?!
sugar are simple fauna . They do n’t have legs , or brains , or faces . But they do havehearts , and those hearts pump hemolymph ( the clam version of blood ) throughout their body . It ’s in this hemolymph that the Cancer the Crab has contract hold .
For years , scientist suspected that the one dollar bill - killing disease was have by a computer virus . Then a squad of researchers speciate in microbiology , Crab , and marine biology examined the clams ’ DNA .
What they found inspired more questions than solution . The clams had cancer — and it was catching .
well-nigh all Cancer the Crab are a one - shot deal , andcan’t be passedfrom one animal to another . Until recently , there were only two knowncontagious cancersin the world . One is a click social disease called Canine Transmissible Venereal Tumor . The other is Devil Facial Tumor Disease , which is broadcast when one Tasmanian devil bites another one on the aspect .
But clams are n’t humping , and since they do n’t have cheek , they ’re unquestionably not biting each other . How , then , is the cancer passed from one clam to the next ? The investigator are n’t altogether sure , but they think that the cancer cells may be released into the water . dollar bill are filter feeders , suck in up liters of water every hour . If a few clam - conditioned emotional response cells happened to be in the neighborhood , they could easily regain themselves a Modern home .
Nobody knows how one clam ’s cancer of the blood could become contagious . So where did those free - floating cancer jail cell come from ? To find out , the scientistssequenced cancer cellsfrom clams all up and down the East Coast . Yet again , the solvent was mind - boggling : the genes were all selfsame , which means that every dollar bill ’s Crab had all come from a single , original host . That ’s one unfortunate clam — which got cancermore than 40 days ago . That clam ’s cancer cells dart off into the ocean , where they found another horde , whose cancer cadre finally scooted off into the ocean … and now it ’s 2015 . The cancer has travel hundred of miles , and we ’ve got a whole fortune of sick loot .
And it may not just be cabbage . mussel , oyster , and cockles are all afflicted with similarly mysterious illnesses . As long as people want to eat on mollusk , these research worker will have jobs .
Thankfully , only clams can get dollar bill - cer . run through seafood and swimming in the ocean are still safe for world . As safe as they ’ve ever been , anyway .
