Scientists bred a frog that only lived for 3 days. It was an extraordinary achievement.
Once a species is extinct, it's gone forever, right? A group of Australian scientists would beg to differ.
There are thousands of endangered or vulnerable species in the world right now.
These include animals like the black rhino, the hawksbill turtle, the pangolin, and the Sumatran elephant.
A black rhino lopes through the Masai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya. There are only a few black rhinos left in the world. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.
Right now, these species have very little chance of living past the next 50 years. But one little frog could change all that.
In the 1970s, Australian scientists discovered a new breed of frog with some interesting behaviors.
The Guardian reports that the Gastric Brooding Frog was unlike any frog scientists had seen before.
As its name suggests, it swallowed its fertilized eggs and newly hatched tadpoles whole. Then the frog's stomach, which functioned like a uterus, would incubate the frogs until they were fully formed.
Scientists had never seen a species behave like the Gastric Brooding Frog, which made it an immediate topic of fascination. Image via University of New South Wales.
And how did the female frog get her frog children back into the world once they were fully formed, you ask? She projectile-vomited them, of course.
These scientists thought the Gastric Brooding Frog could lead to some huge discoveries.
The functions of this frog's extra-special stomach had the potential to help us discover new procedures that could be used in human medicine (think better treatments for stomach ulcers, new antibiotics or even improved fertility treatments).
But then, just as quickly as they popped up, the Gastric Brooding Frogs disappeared in the early 1980s. The same excited scientists determined that the skin-based chytrid fungus wiped them all out. The frogs were extinct.
Here's the cool part, though: 30 years later, those scientists are back on the Gastric Brooding Frog's case once again.
"This is definitely the most extraordinary frog that ever lived anywhere in the world," scientist Michael Archer said when asked about this particular breed of frog for an episode of the "Catastrophic Science" video series.
That's why Archer, a scientist at the University of New South Wales, chose the Gastric Brooding Frog for his next big project, titled "The Lazarus Project."
Archer wants to bring the extinct Gastric Brooding Frog back to life, a process he's calling de-extinction.
Archer hopes that with the help of a group of internationally renowned scientists, he can bring an extinct frog back from the dead. Image via University of New South Wales.
Where do you start when bringing back an extinct frog?
It's just as tough as it sounds.
First, the scientists had to locate a freezer full of dead (but preserved) Gastric Brooding Frogs. From there, the project looks a lot like an "Orphan Black"-style cloning mission.
At a basic level, the scientists take one cell from a frozen Gastric Brooding Frog and put that cell in the DNA-less egg of another, more common Australian frog. That egg will develop into a tadpole eventually — but it should develop into a Gastric Brooding Frog, rather than a common frog.
Remember when scientists cloned Dolly the sheep? This project builds on that research, but scientists are hoping for even better results. Image via University of New South Wales.
The project has been successful so far, but there are still many obstacles.
According to the scientists on the research team, they're well on their way when it comes to creating the second coming of the Gastric Brooding Frog. They've seen embryos divide, which is an incredibly good sign.
But those embryos have only lived for three days so far, so there's still a lot of work to be done.
This little extinct frog could teach us how to (literally) bring species back from the dead. Image via University of New South Wales.
The ramifications of this project for other near-extinct species (and for humans) are huge, though.
"There is increasing interest in the fact that many animals are becoming extinct all over the world," Archer says in the "Catastrophic Science" video. "We're losing biodiversity. We need to find some animal that can be demonstrated to be brought back from the dead."
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An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
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Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.