Jurassic Docs -- Paleontologists Teach Medical Students About Fossil Tumors

http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2006/0607-jurassic_docs.htm --- PITTSBURGH--Think you have nothing in common with a Tyrannosaurus rex or animals from the Jurassic era? Think again. A first-of-its-kind program combines med students, paleontologists, and cutting-edge technology ... And the program's founders say doctors of tomorrow will be better ... if they study dinosaurs to uncover prehistoric medical links between the present and the very distant past.  What do dinosaurs have in common with people today? More than you might think! Fossil technicians process dinosaur bones to find out. With the use of medical physics such as a CT scan of a dinosaur bone, paleontologists find themselves light-years ahead.  It's a non-invasive way to see what earlier researchers have only been able to guess.  Carnegie Museum of Natural History paleontologist Chris Beard says by studying the evolution of prehistoric animals, today's medical students can understand the origins of some common medical problems.  "This is, as far as we know, the oldest evidence of cancer in the fossil record," he tells DBIS of a softball-sized tumor in a 150-million-year-old dinosaur bone.