Pokemon causes cancer.
Saturday, January 29, 2005
It's True!
Few things provoke as severe a love/hate reaction as Pokemon games. That said, even the most rabid Pikachu-basher wouldn't accuse the franchise of being carcinogenic (though the TV show based on the games was accused of causing seizures). However, in the purest technical sense, "Pokemon" does cause cancer. That's because "Pokemon" is also the name of a cancer-causing gene that was recently discovered. In a study published in the January 20 issue of Nature, researchers at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer outline how they isolated the POK Erythroid Myeloid Ontogenic factor--or POKEMON, for short. What's next? A leukemia gene called Dragon Ball Z? A terminal case of Yu-Gi-Oh! Syndrome?
