Froggie Say What?!?!?

A cool new frog has been discovered in Cajun Country. A so called “cryptic” species: It was right under our nose all along!

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Aieee! New frog species calls with a Cajun twang

04:46 PM CST on Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Associated Press

Also Online

FROM: http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa080130_mo_cajuntwang.73c964f2.html
(accessed 31 January 2008)

USGS: Listen to frog calls

NEW ORLEANS – To Cajun cooking and Cajun culture you can add the Cajun frog.

The brown-and-tan, ground-dwelling Cajun chorus frog – kin to spring peepers and green tree frogs – was introduced this month to the scientific world in the journal “Zootaxa.”

“They’re probably calling in Louisiana right now if it rained recently. They breed in January, February and March,” said Emily Lemmon, who discovered the quarter-sized critter while studying frogs for her doctorate in evolutionary biology.

National park ranger and Cajun musician Bruce “Sun Pie” Barnes chuckled at the news. “A Cajun chorus frog. Is it saying ‘Aiee!’?”

Barnes, who works at the Jazz National Historic Park in New Orleans, used to identify frog calls – including chorus frogs – for paddlers on moonlight canoe tours of the Jean Lafitte National Park’s nearby Barataria unit. He said he’d be out listening again, now that he knows this frog is special.

The discovery appears to be the first of a new U.S. frog species since 1985, when Paul Moler identified the Florida bog frog, said Christopher Austin, assistant curator of amphibians and reptiles at Louisiana State University’s Museum of Natural Science.

These frogs, found in western Mississippi, eastern Texas and Oklahoma, all of Arkansas and far southern Missouri, don’t say “ribbit,” “jug-a-rum” or even “ouaouaron” – the bullfrog’s call and name in Cajun French.

Their call is closer to a quick, slightly rising “R r r r a a a a? R r r r a a a a? R r r r a a a a?” — or a miniature New Year’s ratchet.

Gilead, Drugs, The Quick and the Dead

You can just hear thousands of people not dying across the globe, because of this ruling. Sorry Gilead, it is wrong to withhold a lifesaving drug for financial reasons. You should never have pursued protection for it in a way that kept it from those in need. Pure and simple.

Are there other drugs you have patented that were known substances when you patented them?

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FROM: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/article.cfm?id=2484 (accessed 1/30/08)

January 29, 2008

Patent revoked on Tenofovir

US patent office’s move to revoke patents on key HIV/AIDS drug could mean increased access in developing world

In a move that could have major implications on access to a cornerstone HIV/AIDS medicine across the developing world, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office on January 23, 2008 revoked four key patents held by the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences on the drug tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF).

The public interest group Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), which challenged the patents in the US, submitted evidence that TDF was already a known substance at the time of Gilead’s application for the patents, and therefore a patent should not have been granted. The evidence used in the patent office’s ruling may have an impact on whether the drug will be granted patents in other countries, such as India and Brazil.

Did You Know?

Great Blue Herons will eat things as large as rats. Here is an excerpt from a note (posted Jan 22, 2008 5:14 PM) on the “Tweeters” birding list that describes such an encounter:

“My wife and I were at Nisqually on Monday midday. We came upon a GB Heron about 20 feet off the path on dry land staring at the ground. It struck with its bill, pulled and pulled until it came out with a very large rat. It had at least a 7 inch body not counting the tail (naked). As there were several other people stopping to watch it walked off a few feet with the rat twitching in its beak. It then tossed the rat up and swallowed it whole head first. That was a first for me.”

God and Historicity

It seems there is an inherent danger in wanting to insist upon ‘historicity’ as it relates to the biblical texts. At the moment, I am not interested in the larger questions inerrancy or infallability. I am not actually all that interested in the question of whether or not Jesus rose from the dead. To be sure, these are crucial questions, and the answers one thinks are correct to these broad issues has a huge effect of what type of religious (or irreligious) person one is to become.

However, I think there is another question that is perhaps just as interesting. That question is this. Supposing that it is impossible to know what the actual levels of historical accuracies are in the jewish and christian scriptures it seems a compelling thought that all are forced to admit that the texts are not completely accurate in every historical detail. If that is true, one must ask what level, then, of inaccuracy is tolerable in order for them to maintain faith of any sort.

This is a different approach to the question than most biblical apologists take to the question. And, I think, it is one worth exploring further…(TBC)

Does God Care About Animals?

This is an interesting question. Another way to answer it might be to ask it in a different manner:What kind of God would not care about animals? Would you worship that God?

To think about the question, however, you need to think about even more interesting aspects of the topic. For instance, what do you mean by “care”? What do you mean by “animal”?

Throw this into your mix… Do you include humans as a part of the group called animals? Why? Why not? Moreover, is being sad at the death of, or angered at the torture of something enough to constitute “caring”? If so, are you satisfied with your conclusion not only with respect to dogs, cats, Okapi’s and bacteria, but also humans? If not, and you also think humans are animals, what does that tell you about how you feel about God’s caring for you?

…just something to think about.

The Trout Underground

Found a cool blog for all you Trout lovers. Check it out. I do.