Frogs are amazing

[freeztar]

Frogs are one of my favorite subjects for carving i have done three bullfrogs out of green jade, three toads out of ruby, and a tree frog out of ruby in zoisite. one toad out of green garnet.

 

 

Sweet! Do you have any pictures? What do you use to carve them?

You're not a rockhound or mineral collector perchance, are you? :doh:

[Thunderbird]

Sweet! Do you have any pictures? What do you use to carve them?

You're not a rockhound or mineral collector perchance, are you? :doh:

 

I am a rock hound big time, We have a local rock swap in june, I love it, talking to my fellow lapidaries and collectors, geologist, vendors, all around science nerds.

 

I did have some pictures of my frogs on the net but they no longer show up.

are you familiar with lapidary journal? or corlored gemstone magizine? I am in the current Issues jan-feb I won first place with my carving of a fish.

Colored Stone: the 2008 Gemmy Awards

[Thunderbird]

Moved http://hypography.com/forums/earth-science/11112-rock-hounds-unite-4.htmlo :

[freeztar]

:doh:

That's awesome TB!

 

I used to subscribe to the lapidary journal years ago. I even bought a dremel with some diamond grinders, but it didn't seem to do anything to the carnelian I was working with. I'd grind down the grinder and there'd be hardly a nick on the stone. I got frustrated and gave up. If you have some tips, then I'd love to hear them.

 

We've drifted a bit off-topic (in a good way) and I think I'll probably move these last few posts to the following thread if there are no objections.

 

http://hypography.com/forums/earth-science/11112-rock-hounds-unite.html

 

See you there!

[Michaelangelica]

WOW

The fish is beautiful- two years! How many hours?

freeztar OK but in exchange for the pretty pic of the fish we need one of a frog?

Thunderbird!! ?? get cracking

 

Some more on frogs

 

Frog skin diabetes treatment hope

Paradoxical frog

The paradoxical frog is native to South America

Skin secretions from a South American "shrinking" frog could be used to treat type 2 diabetes, researchers say.

 

A compound isolated from the frog, which grows to 27cm as a tadpole before shrinking to 4cm in adulthood, stimulates insulin release.

BBC NEWS | Health | Frog skin diabetes treatment hope

Frog's Slimy Goo Could Help Diabetics

 

Updated:08:19, Monday March 03, 2008

Slimy goo from the skin of an exotic green and pink frog could provide a radical new treatment for diabetes.

Slime could stimulate insulin

 

Scientists say the South American paradoxical frog - so-called because it shrinks in size with age - secretes a substance from its skin which protects it from infection.

 

But researchers believe the molecule could stimulate the release of insulin - the vital hormone lacking in diabetes sufferers.

An artificial copy of the substance, pseudin-2, showed that it could be used to boost insulin production in people with Type 2 diabetes.

 

Even so, much more work must be carried out before the frog therapy is ready to be tested on human patients.

 

The research is being carried out by scientists at the University of Ulster and United Arab Emirates University.

Diabetes Frog: How Natural Slimy Goo Could Help Sufferers |Sky News|Health

"slimy " "goo" frogs need better PR writers The goo has some of the most complex chemicals and anti-biotics in the world (and an occasional prince/ess)

Couple of good videos on this site including one of the newly bred transparent frog, bred to eliminate the need for biology dissections.

And this interesting bit of trivia

Frogs with painkiller benefits

Frogs with painkiller benefits

 

Jelly Belly

This Hyalinobatrachium sp frog also contains the poison. But the good news is that the venom has been isolated by scientists to form a painkiller 200 times more powerful that morphine - without the addictive effects of morphine.

Sorry Sky is too mean to let me share a photo of it.

[Michaelangelica]

I haven't listened yet but it is usually an excellent programme.

listened to it now only short. if you want an abbreviated version just listen to the second show.

Who do you think is right?

I live near a stand of huge gums that prevents us from getting mobile reception and some TV stations.

Ever since I have moved here I have drempt like I have never drempt before -sometimes most of the night. Long involved stories. last night quite a saga about Pricne Charles and the Royal Family before that an abbreviated DH Lawrence novel. Any connection Dr Rodney Croft?

Executive Director,

Australian Centre for Radiofrequency Bioeffects Research

and Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience,

Brain Sciences Institute

Swinburne University of Technology

Melbourne

Ockham's Razor 9 March 2008 - What is killing the frogs? - A reply to last week's talk

Ockham's Razor

Sunday 09 March 2008

 

Listen Now - 09032008 | Download Audio - 09032008

What is killing the frogs? - A reply to last week's talk

 

Last week on this program Barrie Oldfield looked at the decline of frog populations and suggested that electro magnetic radiation and mobile phones may play a role in their demise. Today, Professor Rodney Croft, Executive Director of the Australian Centre for Radiofrequency Bioeffects Research, responds to last week's talk and tells us of his research in this area. Read Transcript

Sunday 02 March 2008

 

Listen Now - 02032008 | Download Audio - 02032008

Why frogs don't like mobile phones

 

Barrie Oldfield is a member and past president of the Western Australian branch of Men of the Trees and he discusses the decline of frog populations in this International Year of the Frog. He suggests that maybe electro magnetic radiation may be the reasons for this calamity. Read Transcript

 

we do know of a number of things that do kill frogs.

 

• Habitat destruction and fragmentation are clear causes of frog mortality, as are non-native predators such as cats and trout.
  
• Chemical pollutants have been shown to cause dramatic changes in tadpoles, ranging from the growth of extra limbs, to feminisation.
  
• Ozone depletion is yet another cause, with frogs unable to adapt to the higher levels of ultra-violet-B radiation that they're exposed to these days,
  
• 
  
• recent extinctions of particular frog species, in both Australia and North America, have been shown to result from a disease called chytridiomycosis, a chytrid fungus that has been here since the 1970s.
  

So while I certainly agree with Mr Oldfield in many of his scientific details, and his encouragement of people to take a more active involvement in caring for their environment, there isn't any reason to believe that frogs will be more affected than, say humans, or mice, by the radiofrequency energy in the environment, and there is certainly no indication that humans or mice have anything to worry about here.

[Michaelangelica]

Wasn't there something you could put in home ponds to kill or prevent chytridiomycosis fungus in ponds?

[mynah]

We had a holiday home in the near-tropical South African Lowveld. The bush music from a nearby manmade pond was sometimes ear-splitting, especially on summer evenings, and we'd often make moonlight trips to the pond to study the inhabitants. These included a number of species, among them bullfrogs, reed frogs, common toads, frogs that built nests of frothy saliva and the strange Xenopus frogs, which spent most of their lives suspended just below the surface.

 

The appearance of some of these - especially the highly aquatic Xenopus - in the pond was something of a mystery, as the nearest other body of water was hundreds of metres away. (Any suggestions?)

 

Sadly, we arrived one year to find the pond dead and silent, with not as much as a pondskater in sight, and nasty green foam floating on the water. That, too, was a mystery we never solved.

[Michaelangelica]

A good Oz site, with lots of links.

Frogs. And more frogs. All at frogs.org.au.

 

Auckland Zoo joins in chorus to save frogs

5:00AM Tuesday March 11, 2008

 

Zoos across Australia and New Zealand are banding together to help protect a number of threatened frog species, whose populations are being depleted by habitat loss and disease.

 

Australasian zoos yesterday announced 17 projects to help 14 different types of frog.

 

Of Australasia's 220 frog species, 47 are considered endangered.

 

The zoos, which include Taronga, Auckland, Perth, Melbourne and Cairns, will also try to raise A$400,000 ($471,800) for the global frog conservation programme Amphibian Ark.

 

Kevin Johnson from the Australasian Regional Association of Zoological Parks and Aquaria said disease and habitat destruction were to blame for the frogs' plight.

 

Auckland Zoo has a programme to help Archey's Frogs, while Perth Zoo has a programme to help Roseate, Orange-bellied and Sunset frogs.

 

Scientists believe about 165 of the world's known frog species may already be extinct.

 

- AAP

Auckland Zoo joins in chorus to save frogs - 11 Mar 2008 - Animal News - New Zealand Herald

[Michaelangelica]

When i was a kid after a week of rain, like we have recently, every gutter and pond was full of tadpoles.

I notice that these days local councils kill grass in roadside drainage "ditches" with Round UP

Apart from encouraging erosion , it may be this that is killing frogs.

 

Even in small doses Roundup fatal to frogs

 

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania, August 15, 2005: As amphibians continue to mysteriously disappear worldwide, a University of Pittsburgh researcher may have found more pieces of the puzzle. Elaborating on his previous research, Pitt assistant professor of biological sciences Rick Relyea has discovered that Roundup, the most commonly used herbicide in the world, is deadly to tadpoles at lower concentrations than previously tested; that the presence of soil does not mitigate the chemical's effects; and that the product kills frogs in addition to tadpoles.

Even in small doses Roundup fatal to frogs

 

]Public release date: 1-Apr-2005

[ Print Article | E-mail Article | Close Window ]

 

Contact: Karen Hoffman

[email protected]

412-624-4356

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

Roundup®highly lethal to amphibians, finds University of Pittsburgh researcher

PITTSBURGH--The herbicide Roundup® is widely used to eradicate weeds. But a study published today by a University of Pittsburgh researcher finds that the chemical may be eradicating much more than that.

 

Pitt assistant professor of biology Rick Relyea found that Roundup®, the second most commonly applied herbicide in the United States, is "extremely lethal" to amphibians. This field experiment is one of the most extensive studies on the effects of pesticides on nontarget organisms in a natural setting, and the results may provide a key link to global amphibian declines.

 

In a paper titled "The Impact of Insecticides and Herbicides on the Biodiversity and Productivity of Aquatic Communities," published in the journal Ecological Applications, Relyea examined how a pond's entire community--25 species, including crustaceans, insects, snails, and tadpoles--responded to the addition of the manufacturers' recommended doses of two insecticides--Sevin® (carbaryl) and malathion--and two herbicides--Roundup® (glyphosate) and 2,4-D.

 

Relyea found that Roundup® caused a 70 percent decline in amphibian biodiversity and an 86 percent decline in the total mass of tadpoles. Leopard frog tadpoles and gray tree frog tadpoles were completely eliminated and wood frog tadpoles and toad tadpoles were nearly eliminated. One species of frog, spring peepers, was unaffected.

 

"The most shocking insight coming out of this was that Roundup®, something designed to kill plants, was extremely lethal to amphibians," said Relyea, who conducted the research at Pitt's Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology. "We added Roundup®, and the next day we looked in the tanks and there were dead tadpoles all over the bottom."

Roundup®highly lethal to amphibians, finds University of Pittsburgh researcher

 

THE LETHAL IMPACT OF ROUNDUP ON AQUATIC AND TERRESTRIAL AMPHIBIANS

These results suggest that Roundup, a compound designed to kill plants, can cause extremely high rates of mortality to amphibians that could lead to population declines.

ESA Online Journals - THE LETHAL IMPACT OF ROUNDUP ON AQUATIC AND TERRESTRIAL AMPHIBIANS

[Galapagos]

Frog without lungs found in Indonesia - Yahoo! News

 

BANGKOK, Thailand - A frog has been found in a remote part of Indonesia that has no lungs and breathes through its skin, a discovery that researchers said Thursday could provide insight into what drives evolution in certain species.

ADVERTISEMENT

 

 

The aquatic frog Barbourula kalimantanensis was found in a remote part of Indonesia's Kalimantan province on Borneo island during an expedition in August 2007, said David Bickford, an evolutionary biologist at the National University of Singapore. Bickford was part of the trip and co-authored a paper on the find that appeared in this week's edition of the peer-reviewed journal Current Biology.

 

Bickford said the species is the first frog known to science without lungs and joins a short list of amphibians with this unusual trait, including a few species of salamanders and a wormlike creature known as a caecilian.

 

"These are about the most ancient and bizarre frogs you can get on the planet," Bickford said of the brown amphibian with bulging eyes and a tendency to flatten itself as it glides across the water.

 

"They are like a squished version of Jabba the Hutt," he said, referring to the character from Star Wars. "They are flat and have eyes that float above the water. They have skin flaps coming off their arms and legs."

 

Bickford's Indonesian colleague, Djoko Iskandar, first came across the frog 30 years ago and has been searching for it ever since. He didn't know the frog was lungless until they cut eight of the specimens open in the lab.

 

Graeme Gillespie, director of conservation and science at Zoos Victoria in Australia, called the frog "evolutionarily unique." He said the eight specimens examined in the lab showed the lunglessness was consistent with the species and not "a freak of nature." Gillespie was not a member of the expedition or the research team.

 

Bickford surmised that the frog had evolved to adapt to its difficult surroundings, in which it has to navigate cold, rapidly moving streams that are rich in oxygen.

 

"It's an extreme adaptation that was probably brought about by these fast-moving streams," Bickford said, adding that it probably needed to reduce its buoyancy in order to keep from being swept down the mountainous rivers.

 

He said the frog could help scientists understand the environmental factors that contribute to "extreme evolutionary change" since its closest relative in the Philippines and other frogs have lungs.

 

Bickford and Gillespie said the frog's discovery adds urgency to the need to protect its river habitat, which in recent years has become polluted due to widespread illegal logging and gold mining. Once-pristine waters are now brown and clogged with silt, they said.

 

"The gold mining is completely illegal and small scale. But when there are thousands of them on the river, it really has a huge impact," Bickford said. "Pretty soon the frogs will run out of the river."

 

This skin-breathing frog certainly couldn't live with any toxic chemicals in its aqueous habitat. I wonder if the frog can actually be seen "breathing"? If it doesn't have lungs to fill, I suppose it could lay indefinitely motionless. I can imagine how that might help from an adaptive standpoint as well.

[Michaelangelica]

Roundup and Amphibians

When the fatal effects of Roundup on amphibians are pointed out, one of the defenses that Monsanto uses is that, “Roundup is not intended for use near wetlands.” It has finally occurred to someone to point out that most of our amphibian species actually reproduce in big puddles.

These temporary water bodies lie in shallow indentations in agricultural fields. The water lasts just long enough for most amphibians to complete their life cycles. Scientists suggest that Roundup may be implicated in the decrease in population number of amphibians around the world.

The Roundup Myth

This is exactly where my local council uses weedicide- in unmade gutters full of grass. Rarely invasive species. Just too lazy to mow.

 

However, in Roundup, glyphosate is combined with surfactants and adjuvants, chemicals that are mixed in to assist in the delivery of the glyphosate into plant cells. This was not pointed out to the consumer. In fact, the consumer, the end user of Roundup, has not been informed of what these additional chemicals were and continue to be. This restriction of information continues, and yet this is the formulation that has been and is being sprayed on agricultural fields around the world.

Rodeo, which is another formulation produced by Monsanto, consists of only glyphosate, diluted with water. This product is intended for use in wetlands and even in water.

When, in 2000, Monsanto lost the patent on glyphosate products, many other companies started manufacturing similar products. As a result the glyphosate-only formulation is readily available on the open market, for instance under the trade name Accord. A separate surfactant, of known constituents, may be mixed in to assist in the delivery of the glyphosate to the plant cells.

[Michaelangelica]

Evolutionary Oddity

 

Previously the only four-limbed creatures known to lack lungs were salamanders.

 

A species of earthwormlike, limbless amphibian called a caecilian is also lungless.

National Geo

First Lungless Frog Found

See Hypography caecilian thread

[Michaelangelica]

"When frogs die due to temperature, it's because they're too cold."

DAAC Study: Where Frogs Live

Of the around 6000 species of amphibians worldwide (most are frogs and toads) around a third are threatened and around 160 species are thought to have become extinct in recent times. By comparison, only 12% of bird species and 23% of mammal species are considered threatened. Also concerning is the observation that 43% of all amphibian species are showing a population decline while fewer that 1% of species are increasing.

 

. . .

An emerging culprit is the disease chytridiomycosis, caused by the chytrid fungus batrachochydrium dendrobatidis, which is thought to be involved in the decline of many of these frog populations. However, because this fungus does not seem to cope well with temperatures above 30oC

Savanna Explorer - All Regions - Northern Australia - Frogs - Threats

[Turtle]

...My most unusual frog encounter involves actually the tadpole of a rare frog. Being the only frog tadpole species to have a "sucker-like" mouth, I mistook them for leaches when I encountered them on the Green Fork River in the Gifford Pinchot national Forest in Washington State USA in the year of 1,992 years before the common era. I have since learned they develop into the rare Tailed Frog which inhabits a narrow band of territory extending along the Pacific NW regions of British Columbia & the United States.

I visited the area recently on a scientific Sasquath expedition, however I saw no tadpoles in the Green Fork; likely too early in the season as my previous sighting occured in July. :hihi:

 

I attempted to return to the Green Fork yesterday in order to try and locate & videograph the rare tailed frogs. Sadly, I can only report that the road in, is still so buried in snow as to make passage by wheeled vehicle impossible.

 

I plan to return later in the season, and I did on this trip try my camera in an underwater housing I plan to use on the Green Fork. I have a few short underwater clips from the East Fork of the Lewis River, which the Green Fork drains into, and I'll post them ASAP. :)

[Michaelangelica]

I am still with dial up so video is out unfortunately

It will be sad to see the web loose its wordyness and turn into video communications.

 

Some good news on the chytrid fungus

1.

Fungus fighter

Posted by ajcann on May 25, 2007

 

Red Backed Salamander Scientists have found a bacterium that appears to repel the deadly chytrid fungus blamed for the rapid decline in populations of amphibians around the world. Laboratory experiments show that Pedobacter cryoconitis - found on the skin of red-backed salamanders - wards off the chytridiomycosis fungus threatening amphibians. Of two bacteria tested so far, one (Pedobacter cryoconitis) speeded the recovery of infected animals while the other (Pseudomonas reactans) has tended to slow the process, at least on the salamanders.

 

“Just because on the Petri plate you find a species of bacteria that is anti-chytrid doesn’t mean it’s going to be anti-chytrid on the amphibian. So we’re going to have to do some tests to make sure which ones are actually most affective on the organism.”

 

Posted in Bacteria, Biology, Environment, Fungi, Microbiology, Mycology, Science | 1 Comment »

From a fascinating web site

Mycology MicrobiologyBytes

 

2.

 

Eye Ointment Can Cure Frog Fungus

 

Posted by Miqe on November 4, 2007

 

An antibiotic primarily used to treat pinkeye in humans rids frogs of the fungal disease that is wiping out amphibian populations around the world, a team of New Zealand scientists reports.Infected frogs treated with the drug for two weeks were cured of the deadly disease, called chytridiomycosis or frog chytrid disease.

Eye Ointment Can Cure Frog Fungus The herptile blog.

 

Some important news on Round up

Round-up Biactive is a newish formulation with a different (unnamed) surficant than the one previously used that killed frogs. It is designed to be used in aquatic environments. Early tests have found it non -toxic on the few frog species it has been tested on.(R. Mann and J. Bidwell The Toxicity of Glyphosate and Several Glyphosate Formulations to Four Species

of Southwestern Australian Frogs

R. M. Mann,1 J. R. Bidwell2

1 School of Environmental Biology, Curtin University of Technology, PO Box U1987, Perth,Western Australia, Australia, 6845

2 School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, University of South Australia, North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, 5000

)

So please use this formulation if you intend using Roundup at all.

Let's just hope that we don't find problems 10 years down the line, like we seem to with many new agricultural chemicals.

[Michaelangelica]

This is a Crinia signifera, Common Eastern Froglet.

Crinia signifera, Common Eastern Froglet

A common frog, will breed the whole year round in little ditches, gutters, puddles etc., and have tiny mottled brown tadpoles and tiny metamorphs. They don't normally look quite so fearsome as this one, we found him on Wednesday when he was calling, and he didn't deflate his vocal sac! Even throughout the measuring, weighing, photo session and all, he stayed like this.

As a bit of a challenge, think of a witty title for this pic.

Davidavid - frogman

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