Aknauta
01-20-2003, 03:10 PM
techcentralstation.c om
Frog Fog
By Alex Avery 01/17/2003
Is a widely used herbicide causing transgendered frogs?
Ever since a group of Minnesota middle school students found some deformed frogs while on a nature class field trip in 1995, environmental scientists have been intensively looking for the causes of both frog deformations and reported frog population declines in some areas of the world.
It's been a heated debate and some environmental activists have been pointing the finger at farm pesticides since day one.
Recent research by a group at UC Berkeley supposedly shows that trace concentrations of the herbicide atrazine, commonly used while growing corn in the American Midwest, causes hermaphroditism in the North American leopard frog. (Hermaphroditism means the amphibians have physical attributes from both sexes.) In this case, a team led by Dr. Tyrone Hayes - and funded by activist environmental foundations - reports that in a seemingly high percentage of frogs at herbicide-contaminated sites, the developing testicles of male leopard frogs had immature eggs within them, rather than immature sperm. Female frogs developed normally.
reports of hermaphroditism in frogs in the wild occurred decades before any atrazine was used on farms (http://www.techcentralstati on.com/1051/envirowrapper.jsp?PI D=1051-450&CID=1051-011703A)
Frog Fog
By Alex Avery 01/17/2003
Is a widely used herbicide causing transgendered frogs?
Ever since a group of Minnesota middle school students found some deformed frogs while on a nature class field trip in 1995, environmental scientists have been intensively looking for the causes of both frog deformations and reported frog population declines in some areas of the world.
It's been a heated debate and some environmental activists have been pointing the finger at farm pesticides since day one.
Recent research by a group at UC Berkeley supposedly shows that trace concentrations of the herbicide atrazine, commonly used while growing corn in the American Midwest, causes hermaphroditism in the North American leopard frog. (Hermaphroditism means the amphibians have physical attributes from both sexes.) In this case, a team led by Dr. Tyrone Hayes - and funded by activist environmental foundations - reports that in a seemingly high percentage of frogs at herbicide-contaminated sites, the developing testicles of male leopard frogs had immature eggs within them, rather than immature sperm. Female frogs developed normally.
reports of hermaphroditism in frogs in the wild occurred decades before any atrazine was used on farms (http://www.techcentralstati on.com/1051/envirowrapper.jsp?PI D=1051-450&CID=1051-011703A)