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Scientists Build an Ark To Save Jungle Amphibians
Peace Corps Online writes "In the 1980s a deadly fungus called chytrid appeared in Central America and began moving through mountain streams, killing as many as 8 out of 10 frogs and extinguishing some species entirely. (The fungus has little effect on any other vertebrates.) Now a returned Peace Corps volunteer and her husband have opened the El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center in western Panama to house more than 600 frogs as chytrid cuts a lethal path through the region. Experts agree that the only hope of saving some of the more endangered, restricted-range species is to collect animals from remaining wild populations, establish captive breeding programs, and be prepared to conduct reintroduction projects in the future. But before reintroduction can even begin, scientists must find some way to overcome the chytrid in native habitats using vaccines, breeding for resistance, or genetic engineering of the fungus. Conservationists are budgeting for 25 years of captive breeding, long enough, they believe, to allow some response to chytrid to be found. 'There are more species in need of rescue than there are resources to rescue them,' says Amphibian Ark's program director. 'When you're talking about insidious threats like disease or climate change, threats that can't be mitigated in the wild, there's simply no alternative.'"
It is our nature to interfere with nature, and who are we to interfere with nature? Therefore, in order to be true to our nature (and therefore not interfere with nature) we must surely interfere with nature!
Demented But Determined.
Did you read the article you fucking dimwit? This is not a Peace Corps project, and the only connection to the Peace Corps is that one of the people doing it used to be a Peace Corps volunteer.
He is allowed to do other things I hope.
Look, I know, being apparently rather stupid and badly educated, you do not like to read articles; I am sure entire articles with all their long paragraphs and sentences and stuff tire you out and are terrible burden upon you. And I am sure it is much easier and more fun to just vent this pent up hatred you have of volunteer organizations. I mean whats not to hate about volunteer organizations -- they try to help people. The bastards.
But you see, if you are going to start flaming on slashdot, you should try very hard to read the article (you can do it, just get plenty of sleep beforehand). You have to do it just to cover your ass. Otherwise you get flamed yourself. Asshole.
I know I've been looking forward to free-range fried frog's legs that don't let you down in the hallucination department.
Even trying to bread a frog ... is at best an artificial solution, and one that historically has never worked on any grand scale.
I disagree. I've successfully managed to bread frogs en masse, you just have to have a really large fryer. Delicious and crispy!
Sorry, couldn't help myself.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
How would biologists stay employed, if not for this?
I believe Love And Rockets covered this: "You cannot go against nature / because when you do / go against nature / it's part of nature too".
Thus confirming the thesis that all major questions of philosophy have been covered by 80s music.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
This is not natural:
"Due to its extensive use in obstetrics and research, it appears Xenopus laevis has carried B. dendrobatidis with it out of Africa to all over the world, causing chytridomycosis and eventually death in native frogs naÃve to the fungi."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_clawed_frog
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol10no12/03-0804.htm
Humans are virtually incapable of making realistic cost-benefit analyses of these type of situations. There is so much genetic material phasing into and out of existence, human beings could not begin to comprehend it all. However, a single species is easy enough to comprehend, and so by being considered at all it gets a fairly disproportionate representation in the grand scheme of earth's ecosystem. (and I guess the 'conservationists' are not so sentimental about fungus as frogs)
I think it is interesting that their long-term solution is either to attack the fungus (basically performing a total reversal of natural selection through human intervention) or to preserve the frogs and provide the frogs with some kind of immunity. Of course, nature *already has* an paradigm for immunity, the principle mechanism of which is to let all the organisms that lack intrinsic biological defenses to be killed off.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
But you see, if you are going to start flaming on slashdot, you should try very hard to read the article (you can do it, just get plenty of sleep beforehand). You have to do it just to cover your ass. Otherwise you get flamed yourself. Asshole.
I think you forgot to add "Also, fuck you."
Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
we're just postponing the inevitable.
Which is why we go to the doctor.
You make it sound like postponing the inevitable is a bad thing. Maybe we'll learn a thing or two from these frogs or about these frogs if we keep them around just a little bit longer.