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I always assumed they'd be white because that's how they look on a scan, but then I watched a documentary where they autopsied a cancer victim on camera (yes, really) and was surprised when the tumours didn't look noticeably different from the surrounding tissue. But you're right, when you think about what cancer actually is, why would they look different?

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Like u/DrDirtPhD said, it wouldn't clear anything up. If we assigned all amniotes as reptiles that would make us reptiles too (as it is, people have a problem with view birds as reptiles).

But also, the choices here are to help break the older "ladder thinking" and similar biases in biology.

As such, calling synapsids "mammal-like reptiles" and reptiles "bird-like" or "lizard-like" reptiles has a heavy implication of directionality to it. Evolution doesn't move towards some goal. Birds and mmmals aren't some pinnacle of vertebrate or amniote evolution. We all exist, some survive, some die. We all seem to have our niches (more or less, life changes, and humans are... complicated). But none are inherently "better" than anything else because that isn't scientific, and trying to force a zebra to live like a lizard wouldn't work, just as an example.

The impact crater was discovered in 1991. After that, it took several years to convince most scientists it was the cause. People had to write papers showing how the effects of the impact could cause extinction.

The volcano hypothesis remained around because of the Deccan traps which happened slightly before. However, many studies have shown that the climate change caused by the volcanism was small (loss of 2°C which is negligible compared to the variation of temperature that happened during the hundreds of millions of years the dinosaurs lasted) and that the dinosaurs survived during the time between the start of the Deccan trap volcanism and the impact.

I've seen a sample of al dental tumor cells being metastasised into a kidney. Yes, those were actual molars growing out of a kidney. Those cells were pretty white.

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I believe this is the main way to identify cancer cells. They become undifferentiated and lose the appearance and function the cell originally had.

Edit: typo

Size dimorphism means a difference in size between the two sexes of a species.

Yea that's what I said.

You might want to look in Fisherian runaway selection and Zahavian honest signalling. Both are explanations for the evolution of preferences for sexually selected traits, but would take a while to write out here. Wikipedia is good.

Such traits don't need to offer a survival advantage to evolve. In fact, many examples probably offer a survival disadvantage.

Are you telling me that a beaver has inner and outer mouth labia?

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> to the naked eye they would most likely appear off-white.

Single cells would appear clear. Agglomerations of many, many cells would appear off-white for the same reason that milk or snow appears off-white: indiscriminate scattering of white light.

Let’s no go crazy on the verbosity. It’s a 9-year old. We have been programmed to associate cancer with cigarettes and tar. (Not necessary a bad thing).

Just give him a new paw patrol toy….or, if you want to really be effective, let him watch “Cell at Work” or if you’re really daring “Once Upon a Time…Life”

> tl;dr: Usually white.

Since the context of the question was cells rather than tissue, I'll note that "white" often arises from an agglomeration of many clear/transparent things: salt, sugar, milk, snow, etc. All the single eukaryotic cells I've examined via microscopy have been essentially transparent. (In fact, quite sophisticated methods are necessary to discern many features in the living, unstained cell.)

Seems like you are in the hands of capable clinicians - I simply wish you all the best.

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Not an expert here, but as a cancer survivor I've had lots of meetings with doctors, oncologists, geneticists, etc. I've been told that cancer cells do turn black. I think it depends on the age of the cell though. Every cell in your body basically has a "kill switch" that causes the cell to die under various circumstances. When cancer occurs, it's because the gene for that kill switch is damaged, so basically the cell cannot die and just keeps dividing. After time, that cancer cell will continue to grow and eventually turn black.

I had colon cancer that spread to my lymph nodes. When my lymph nodes were removed, the cancerous ones did look black, according to my surgeon.

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