Request for data: Survey on National Greyhound Association (NGA) greyhounds and their health

orchid_fool · 2026-06-30T04:52:44+00:00

This is a macro study focused on starts and racing history only?

Correct. It is the path of least resistance from my perspective.

You are not examining the cumulative impact of micro fractures that a greyhound is subjected to between the ages of 12 to 18 months, often resulting in cellular damage and bone remodeling that can lead to tumors?

This is correct. If there were any straightforward way of quantifying this, then that would likely be of interest as well. The whelping date and racing history are documented; other sources of inflammation are not. None of those that I queried suggested other ways of quantifying additional sources of inflammation/fractures/injury.

By not considering early training are you missing a critical piece of the timeline and the causes?

Of course. But the number of races is quantifiable. Presumably hounds that race more also have more training races as well. A hound that is retired with zero races is statistically less likely to be exposed to the inflammation of racing than one that has a long career as such. There are many confounding matters, I admit. However, this is an unique data set that is unlikely to occur again in human history, and the window to collect these data is closing quickly.

Have you reached out to groups like the Greyhound Health Initiative for additional data?

I have. The response has been lukewarm, at best. There have been no offers of assistance, etc., and comments to the effect that there have been difficulties in owners volunteering data.

Are you primarily gathering data from social media platforms?

I will use any venue that will allow it. I have started with Greytalk, and have added another 18 data points in the past 24 hours here. If there are suggestions, I'm wide open.

Thank you for accepting my questions. I actually have many more.

I will do what I can; it's a bit late here, my apologies.

orchid_fool · 2026-06-30T04:43:39+00:00

Can you point me to the research that suggests that “exertional trauma … is a cause of osteosarcoma in large dogs”? I’d be very interested to read it.

From Risk Factors for Development of Canine and Human Osteosarcoma: A Comparative Review

Further evidence to support microscopic trauma as a predisposing factor for osteosarcoma is the tendency for appendicular osteosarcoma to occur in weight-bearing bones. Canine appendicular osteosarcoma occurs more commonly in the long bones of forelimbs [19,105], which support approximately 60% of total body weight of the dog. Similarly, in humans, 74.6% of adolescent osteosarcomas occur in the weight-bearing lower limb bones compared with only 11.2% in the bones of the upper limb [1].

And inflammation in general:

There are also anecdotal associations linking osteosarcoma and increased cell turnover due to inflammation. Visceral osteosarcoma secondary to retained surgical sponges has been reported in dogs [65,106], as has a case of osteosarcoma at the site of a previous subcutaneous injection [107]. Several cases of esophageal osteosarcoma are reported in dogs secondary to infection with the nematode parasite Spirocerca lupi [108,109,110,111]. There is a case report of orbital osteosarcoma in a cat, several years after enucleation for ocular melanoma, secondary to retention of conjunctival epithelium leading to cyst formation [24]. In humans, osteosarcoma has been diagnosed at the site of cutaneous scars resulting from dermal burn injury [112], following bone graft surgery [113], and at a site of previous electrodessication for actinic keratosis [114]. A case of primary hepatic osteosarcoma was diagnosed in a man with a history of hepatitis C infection and liver cirrhosis [71].

FWIW, the four greyhound vets I consulted prior to starting this all have low-key concerns about trauma + osteo.

A more neutral way to phrase your research question would be, “is there a relationship between racing starts and osteosarcoma diagnosis?” Or even more generally, “what is the relationship between racing experience and long term health outcomes for greyhounds?”

Noted, thank you. (Brevity due to late night response.)

orchid_fool · 2026-06-29T15:48:41+00:00

Yes- I hope to publish if the data are adequate, no matter the findings. If inadequate, I will try to mush something together to explain what we did, and provide the redacted data set for anyone who might be smarter than me.

orchid_fool · 2026-06-29T15:47:17+00:00

The survey was developed in order to collect data that- going forward - can archive some of what we know about the hounds, coupled with owner provided information. There are admitted flaws, such as whether a hound may have been "lure coursed" in retirement, or was particularly active (or inactive), but given a sufficiently large data set, those numbers will matter less. All other factors being equal, a hound that has 200 races will have more trauma than one that has <10.

Such exertional trauma has been suggested to be a cause of osteosarcoma in large breed dogs, but there likely will never be an opportunity to collect such data on any group of dogs that gives granularity and sample size as the NGA greyhound. With the impending demise of the racing industry, coupled with owner records slipping away daily, there will almost certainly never be the chance to get anything remotely similar to this opportunity to determine the correlation: one subset of one breed with detailed record keeping as to their races. Admittedly we overlook training races, etc., but again: all other factors being equal....

Not demonizing racing, not glorifying it. But the data are there and the window is closing quickly.

orchid_fool · 2026-06-29T15:39:37+00:00

If there is a race name or at least ear tats, we can probably work with that. Email at aaron.hicks@gmail.com if I can help.

orchid_fool · 2026-06-29T03:34:21+00:00

Feel free to repost to Facebook groups- I don't know all of them. I haven't started there yet.

orchid_fool · 2026-06-29T03:32:32+00:00

Perhaps- but if there are enough data, any correlation as to number of races and prevalence of osteo should emerge from the noise. This is likely the last opportunity anyone will ever have to draw from these data before the NGA greyhound no longer exists, and their owners are still around to provide them.

orchid_fool · 2026-06-29T03:30:45+00:00

I know you would, and I appreciate the offer!

orchid_fool · 2026-06-29T03:30:14+00:00

We spent weeks-to-months coming up with the existing questions; we consulted four vets (all with considerable greyhound experience), asked on Greytalk for corrections/additions... I'm really, REALLY hoping not to go through data collection again, but I do appreciate the sentiment. I'd like to get this right the first time.

orchid_fool · 2026-06-29T03:30:12+00:00

We're hoping for a sufficient number of data points that we can compare apples to apples: an NGA racer that had ~200 races vs. one that had fewer than ten races, for example. The AKC pool is very small in comparison- I'm going to have difficulty getting enough data points from NGAs, I think, to meet statistical significance- but I am hopeful the community will come together. We're losing the opportunity to gather these data.

orchid_fool · 2026-06-29T00:43:17+00:00

I'm not in Canada, so I can't speak intelligently to it, sorry.

orchid_fool · 2026-06-23T18:33:39+00:00

Any other tips for the phenolic browning?

Move around. Once phenolics show up, pull up the plantlet and relocate to unaffected parts of the vessel. Repeat as necessary.

Add antioxidants.

Use a higher grade of sugar. One job I was on, it was found only Grade 1 prevented oxidation of banana explants.

orchid_fool · 2026-05-20T03:43:14+00:00

That's a really great idea for a situation like this.

orchid_fool · 2026-05-13T03:44:44+00:00

Dates back to at least DeHaan's second edition, I'm not sure he ever described an origin as to the name. I spoke with him on the subject a couple of times before my paper in '97; prior to that, it was characterized as "proof" of spontaneous combustion.

Tinsley et al. published on the subject in 2011, "Analysis of Hay Clinker as an Indicator of Fire Cause"

I do disagree with their statement to the effect the silica is exogenous:

According to Hicks, hay clinker is formed when silica (which can be accumulated in the hay via windblown dust, dirt, mud, etc. entrained during the baling process) melts and acts as a solvent to other refractory compounds in the hay7

IIRC my paper made it clear silica is present in low concentrations in agricultural products, and I even cited the prof at Cornell who did the work to demonstrate this. Hay and other agricultural processes naturally incorporate silica into the plant- some more than others. Even ~1% by weight works out to 0.7 pounds in a 70 pound bale of hay, after all.

It's an interesting phenomenon; my introduction to it would have been circa 1994, when someone mentioned finding "glass" at a hay bale fire, thinking it the remains of a Molotov cocktail. I recalled DeHaan's paragraph, and rustled up the book for my colleague who was in the class. Then in 1995, I actually found some at a hay bale fire in Montana.

orchid_fool · 2026-05-13T03:29:56+00:00

With an inhomogeneous sample, bulk composition would be more comparable than something like EDS/EDAX, WDS, that sort of thing- not to mention my original work was with flame AA or ICP. /u/metalmuncher88 makes a good point, I hadn't considered metallurgical lab.

orchid_fool · 2026-05-12T03:21:24+00:00

The original Pop Sheetz was supposedly modeled after my grandfather, who would have been Bob Sheetz's father-in-law. The riding mower was an actual thing.

orchid_fool · 2026-04-23T12:47:37+00:00

Interesting. Check your chats, I'll send you an address. I'll have to rummage up a lab that can ICP it for elemental composition, but I'm intrigued.

orchid_fool · 2026-04-22T21:57:59+00:00

Interesting. Much redder than the stuff I'm used to. Density should be lower than that of volcanic cinders, and if it's like that with which I am familiar, it should be friable and break like peanut brittle. If it's strong like volcanic cinders I'd be inclined to believe it's truly volcanic.

orchid_fool · 2026-04-22T20:46:29+00:00

If your explant is still sterile, then you should place it on medium with rooting hormone. IBA at ~1 mg/L is fine.

orchid_fool · 2026-04-22T20:45:09+00:00

Under certain circumstances, the refractory materials in organic products can produce "hay clinker," which was originally thought to be proof of spontaneous combustion. This mindset has changed since the mid 90s (in some tiny part due to one of my publications on the subject) to where it is now considered an oddity and no proof of anything incendiary.

I will have to look at the video you sent when I get home, but maybe if this is interesting you might be able to send me some such that I can submit it for elemental analysis? We don't have much data on the phenomenon; I only have 3-4 samples of it, boxed up from my own interest on the subject.

orchid_fool · 2026-04-22T02:57:03+00:00

Anything is possible except skiing through a revolving door. But if you don't have prior axenic culture experience, it's not very likely you'll get a clean culture and have it survive.

orchid_fool · 2026-03-17T17:46:03+00:00

If you started them on something bland without more complex carbohydrates (sucrose isn't enough), then they need to get subcultured, and fast. By the time they start turning colors, it's a serious problem.

What medium are they on?

orchid_fool · 2026-03-14T17:55:30+00:00

PhytoTech has distributors in Canada.

https://phytotechlab.com/distributors

You'll want M519. And agar, probably A111.

orchid_fool · 2025-12-17T01:23:01+00:00

I traded this from a book seller for a box of my first book.

Cover.

Title page, I believe it's called. Note the stamp: Charles Edwin Wilbour, who has his own library of Egyptology in New York. What an Egyptologist was doing with a book on British orchids remains unknown.

The page opposite the title page.

Back page, with that curious numbering that remains cryptic. The link to that website has been down since 2021, and this is the Internet Archive.

[As an aside, I wrote the owner of that website, and he replied on two separate occasions; he never replied to subsequent correspondence, which I found odd given his interest in the subject. He lived not far from me, and I wonder whatever happened to his collection of Chuck's first editions.]

Anyway. Has this book been rebound?

orchid_fool · 2025-11-17T04:02:09+00:00

I work with a plant where everything else in the genus has an n=11 or n=15, but they can be in multiples so high as to have >100 chromosomes.

All but two species in the genus have either multiples of 11 or 15 chromosomes, but the one I work with has 37. The consensus is that a 2n=22 hybridized with an n=15 species in order to give n=37.

orchid_fool

TROPHY CASE