1/3 of Amphibians Dying Out 467
Death Metal sends in a Scientific American article reporting that 2,000 of 6,000 amphibian species are endangered worldwide. A combination of environmental assaults, including global warming, seems to be responsible. "... national parks and other areas protected from pollution and development are providing no refuge. The frogs and salamanders of Yellowstone National Park have been declining since the 1980s, according to a Stanford University study, as global warming dries out seasonal ponds, leaving dried salamander corpses in their wake. Since the 1970s, nearly 75 percent of the frogs and other amphibians of La Selva Biological Station in Braulio Carrillo National Park in the Caribbean lowlands of Costa Rica have died, perhaps due to global warming. But the really bad news is that amphibians may be just the first sign of other species in trouble. Biologists at the University of California, San Diego, have shown that amphibians are the first to respond to environmental changes, thanks to their sensitivity to both air and water. What goes for amphibians may soon be true of other classes of animal, including mammals."
Bullshit! (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PufNFWo9mm0 [youtube.com]
The endangered species act is a national disgrace.
Global warming and not disease huh? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Pollution/Habitat loss, not global warming! (Score:5, Informative)
Been reading too many oil company lackeys' "studies", eh? Guess everyone in the field is a gullible fool compared to you, random anonymous Internet poster.
Sun Not a Global Warming Culprit, Study Says [nationalgeographic.com]
Solar Variability Unlikely To Have Caused Recent Warming [cc.oulu.fi]
Don't Blame Sun for Global Warming, Study Says [nationalgeographic.com]
Solar Activity Not Causing Warming [agu.org]
Its not global warming, its a new fungus. (Score:4, Informative)
EXTINCTION CRISIS FOR AMPHIBIANS [sfgate.com]
this time its not our fault... but maybe we can help them (or... is it not nice to fool with Mother Nature?)
Re:Pollution/Habitat loss, not global warming! (Score:4, Informative)
In the meanwhile, Wikipedia on frogs croaking [wikipedia.org]. Note that TFA is similar, despite what TFS suggests: mostly discussion about pollutants and diseases, with a nod to the obvious factor of climate change as one possible cause of habitat destruction.
Mod Parent up! He is right... (Score:5, Informative)
The cause of worldwide amphibian population declines is the Chytrid Fungus. However many do think that global warming is making the situation happen faster and to a more serious degree. Here is some quick links if you want to read more on the subject ...
From Nat Geo:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080401-frog-fungus.html [nationalgeographic.com]
The NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/04/science/04frog.html [nytimes.com]
The CDC:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol10no12/03-0804.htm [cdc.gov]
Re:The real question... (Score:3, Informative)
The real question is, do they taste good fried?
Yes, but that's not the reason they are crunchy. They are crunchy because we don't take out the bones.
Re:*squish* Just like grape. (Score:5, Informative)
Since there are already many comments already posted I doubt this will get read and I suspect the OP is a troll, but this is really an unpalatable level of ignorance.
Amphibians aren't a "species," they're an entire class of interesting, ecologically important animals. Their continued existence is in our best interest for a number of reasons;
First, amphibians tend to be important bell weather species in their habitats. Since they take in water in the first part of their life cycles, they are important barometers of the amount of pollution in an environment.
Second they are ecologically important. As predators we depend on them to keep the number of insects down. In a world without amphibians I suspect insect borne human disease will become more rampant. They also are important food sources for larger animals.
Third, it is not a issue of "adaptation." Most scientists seem to agree the biggest threat facing amphibians is pollution (again because part of their life cycle is spent completely in water and even after that their skin is porous). While factors like global warming, UV radiation, etc. are no doubt important, the trend seems to be pollution being a major factor.
A note to my third point - you are almost as bad as Creationist "scientists." You say amphibians should "evolve," but you fundamentally don't understand how evolution works. It takes time for a species to do so and moreover, it has to respond to environmental conditions (changes in the environment, in predators or prey), not to pollution.
Fourth, amphibians are hugely important in human science. The chemicals they produce, the aspects of embryonic life they can teach us, and the clues they might give us to the move that fish made onto land is of large scientific importance. Not to mention the fact that a number of problems now affecting amphibians is sure to (if it hasn't already - it would seem harder to gauge with completely aquatic life than it would with amphibians) be a problem for fish and other scientifically and commercially important wildlife.
Re:Pollution/Habitat loss, not global warming! (Score:2, Informative)
Why would they take part in a scam? What would just about all major scientific organizations and a vast majority of individual scientists involved in climate research have to gain by putting their reputations on the line in order to "take advantage of Gaia-worship and gullible fools"? What would they have to gain from it?
Research grant money? Note that they are forecasting those dramatic effects tens years in the future. How convenient. If it does now warm as predicted, they will a) be retired long time ago anyway b) claim the measures taken based on their advice fixed the problem. And it is now "climate change" anyway and climate changes all the time, means they cannot be wrong. Very litte reputation is in danger here, really. The only possible danger for them is radical global cooling - with emphasis on "radical" - otherwise they can always find many apologies why it is not warming as fast as predicted (which it is not, in fact - since 1998, temperatures hardly changed, if not dropped).
Re:Pollution/Habitat loss, not global warming! (Score:3, Informative)
Ok, I'll bite (Score:5, Informative)
We have such special machines named pyromether and thermometer. The lattrer one we use at surface, to measure local temperature and guess what, most of them are averaging to highter temperatures every year. But the real juice we get from the first one, we put them on satelites and measure the temperature averaged on a big area, and guess what, the global average temperature is going up too.
We can't be completely sure. But we can be some 80% to 99% sure that the bigest part of it is man-made. We know, from looking at other planets, from physics and chemistry, and from observing correlations (note that the two fist imply causation) that dumping CO2 at the atmosphere causes global warming. We are also able to make calculations, see how much CO2 we put at the atmosphere, and comare it with how much CO2 goes there naturaly. It is not hard to go from there to a conclusion, since our output is almost an order of magnitude highter.
See, no circular logic. Now, you won't listen anyway, so continue beliving what you want, should I advice you to put all your economies at realstate too? It can only go up.
Re:Don't challenge the sacred chants (Score:3, Informative)
RTFA
RTFA
RTFA
The problem seems to be chemicals affecting hormonal response, pH change causing fungal plagues, and excessive loss of habitat. Climate change merely increases the habitat destruction. The pH induced fungal plagues currently eradicating some of our plant species don't get much press, IMO that may be the larger problem. Here on /. the perception problem is observable, clearly some of Y'ALL aren't paying attention.
Re:The real question... (Score:5, Informative)
In other words, Ihmhi is correct in saying that the fuel can be reprocessed and reused until there is only a small amount of unusable waste. The waste presents a radioactivity hazard so storing it underground might be the best solution, but dealing with the waste of a FBR is trivial as compared with the waste of a LWR.