Gaming News: "Pokemon causes Cancer"
Posted: Tuesday December 20th, 2005
by
You guys know me, I'm a sucker for a good news story. So, when I heard Pokemon USA was threatening legal action to keep "Pokemon causes cancer" out of the headlines, I just couldn't resist.
To explain:
In an article written from the "Nature" science Journal, a Mr. Pier Paolo Pandolfi of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York described the recently discovered, cancer-causing, POK erythroid myeloid ontogenic gene. Problem is, he abbreviated the gene POKEMON.
Sources: Gamespot [ more info ] & Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center [ more info ]
Now, whether Mr. Pandofli was trying to be "cute", grab headlines, or just made an hoest mistake is unclear. Journalists ate the news item up, reveling in their unique cleverness, and tossing out the rather misleading splash.
Investigators have officially named the gene Zbtb7, but it will probably ALWAYS be know as "the oncogene formerly known as Pokemon".
[ discuss ]