Old water! Wind maps! Dry bugs! Fur seals! Science books! Star explosions! Tiny particles! Sea snails! And other wet and wondrous creatures! It's your Friday Science Watch, where we watch science—with scrutiny!
When Paul Marinaccio was a child living in Italy, he had a terrifying encounter with a neighbor. He remembers wandering from the vineyard where his parents worked to a nearby farm to pick figs. While there, he encountered a man, who angrily chased the young Paul from the property while, for some reason, holding several bullfrogs. The fear stayed with Marinaccio.
"Let's teach horny frogs to zip it up" is the headline today on the professional newspaper column written by Andrea "Sexxx Sexxx Sexxx Sexxx Embittered Tabloid Lady" Peyser. Seems like a good headline for someone whose primary interests are anger and frog cocks. (Andrea Peyser.) What is in this column, today?
Check out this frog. That is one small frog, huh? On a dime, all, daaaamn, what is this enormous metal disk I am on in his tiny high-pitched frog voice. The scientists who discovered this guy couldn't even hear his tiny voice. "It was particularly difficult to locate Paedophryne amauensis," says frog-discover Chris Austin of Louisiana State University, "due to its diminutive size and the males' high pitched insect-like mating call." I bet, man. This frog, Paedophryne amauensis, is 7.7 millimeters long and it is literally the tiniest veterbrate known to human beings. He's all, whatever, though. [Discovery; image via LSU]
This scientist licks frogs and salamanders like they're a tub of Ben & Jerry's, in order to determine what they are secreting is "foul" or not. For a video by Nat Geo, this is certainly an old-fashioned approach.
This frog starts out like any other... slimey and jumpy. Oddly patient as it has its face shoved up against the lens, only to unleash the most unfroglike noise ever. I think its real, too.
Today, proof that people aren't the only ones capable of humiliating internet failures! (Amphibians with an appetite are, too, apparently.)
As a kid, it was really fun to put salt on a slug (shut up, PETA) and watch it melt like the Wicked Witch of the West. Well putting salt on frog's legs yields much freakier, and sexier results.
