[Aaron]

Exploding Toads

I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge my complete and utter devotion to the various gods of every religion that has an "end of the world" prophesy.


Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Vishnu... I love you all!

Save us Aquaman!

[BiGG]

That link requires registration, can you just tell us what is on it?

[Aaron]

No it does not...

[BiGG]

It does on mine...

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[Aaron]

Strange...

I don't have an account with them but it loads right up.

Toads ABC

[RonMN]

Maybe it's the answer to PO...we could harness the energy of exploding toads or maybe they've been eating alkaseltzer tablets!

It's sure be fun to pour a cocktail, & head out with friends at 2:00 am to watch!

[Ebyss]

Ehhh... that's slightly odd.

Amphibians always seem so susceptible to odd mutant evolutionary strategies. This one doesn't appear so successful.

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')fter death, this virus is able to restart the heart of it’s victim for up to two hours after the initial demise of the person where the individual behaves in extremely violent ways from what is believe to be a combination of brain damage and a chemical released into blood during “resurrection.”

[BiGG]

BBC

[entropyfails]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', '
')
BBC

Well ok then...

I renew my devotion to all faiths, and renounce all false faiths.

We all laugh about mutant biker zombies...

Crap

[entropyfails]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')fter death, this virus is able to restart the heart of it’s victim for up to two hours after the initial demise of the person where the individual behaves in extremely violent ways from what is believe to be a combination of brain damage and a chemical released into blood during “resurrection.”

[gg3]

This all may seem slightly funny in a sick way, but I think it should be taken seriously. Think of ebola and marburg: the human victims' bodies turn into bags of mush that bleed from every orifice until dead.

Here's a story on the exploding frogs that contains some images (not for the highly squeamish):

http://www.local6.com/news/4410396/detail.html

The picture of the toads swelling up, shows the toads appearing to crawl as they are swelling up. Crawling is unusual behavior for toads (at least North American species), which usually move in a series of short (compared to frogs) hops.

The hypothesis about the toads swelling up (i.e. by storing inhaled air) *to discourage predation by birds* does not strike me as fully viable on its own; it would also require some mechanism to explain why the swelling continues until the animal explodes -and, also why these cases have been observed even when no predatory birds are nearby to threaten the toads.

I think it more likely that we are dealing with an infectious or toxic agent or combination of agents. I can think of three specific mechanisms that would cause the toads to explode:

1) The toad's nasal passages swell shut in a manner that produces a one-way valve effect, that enables the toad to inhale but not to exhale. In this case, as the toad breathes normally, it gradually increases in size with the stored air, until it bursts. In this case, the critical clinical measurement would be the volume of air inhaled and exhaled by the toad, which could be obtained by some means that included an airtight mask fitted to the toad's head (don't laugh, I'm serious).

2) The decomposition of internal organs caused by a disease process, which leads to a buildup of gaseous decomposition byproducts, to a degree that finally causes the toad to explode. It seems that this process would necessarily include a rise in bodily temperature that could also be measured.

3) Some kind of chemical interaction for example between an acid and a base, that occurs in the animal's body, such as in the lungs, bloodstream, or digestive tract. This could be measured by way of gaseous products given off after the explosion, for example an excess of carbon dioxide.

4) An accumulation of a fluid instead of a gas. One item to check is the relative salinity of the pond water and the toads' bodies, since a difference in salinity can cause water to transport across cell membranes and accumulate until cells burst. A similar effect on the entire organism could produce the explosions. Here we would want to examine the water and the insects that the toads were eating.

What's going to be needed here is to capture enough toads that the process of their swelling and exploding can be observed and measured closely. An X-ray or scan of the toad's body could indicate the areas of the body in which fluid or gas is accumulating. Samples could be removed by use of a hypodermic needle, which of course is going to be terribly painful to the toads, though unavoidable and in any case those toads would die painful deaths if they exploded. It's also possible that a needle could be used to relieve the pressure and then see if the toads suffer a recurrence after being tranferred to a controlled environment such as a lab terrarium. We'd also want to look at whether a toad bred & raised in a sterile environment could "catch" the syndrome from an afflicted toad or from its remains.

What I also find interesting about this, is that it seems to fit with an unexpected interpretation of the idea of a "rain of frogs" from the Biblical end-times prophesies. Normally we think of a "rain of frogs" as the occurrence whereby a small cyclonic storm picks up aquatic life from a pond and then releases same over land. However, it could also be said that the entrails of the exploding toads constitute a kind of "rain." This is highly disturbing because it could be used by end-times fanatics as another "sign," thereby encouraging them in their efforts to bring about theocracy and/or other prophesied end-times events such as large scale wars and so on.

Next posting: BBC link appears to be a hoax.

[gg3]

I would have to say, with reasonably high certainty, that the BBC link is a hoax.

What got me suspicious was the line, "After death, this virus is able to restart the heart of it’s victim for up to two hours after the initial demise of the person where the individual behaves in extremely violent ways from what is believe to be a combination of brain damage and a chemical released into blood during “resurrection.”"

First, the use of "it's" where the proper word would be "its." This is a common mistake in English, and one that the copy reviewers at BBC would almost certainly catch & correct.

Second, the above quote is a run-on sentence.

Third, "what is believe" is a mis-spelling, it should be "what is believed," and again, BBC editors would almost certainly catch that and fix it.

Last but not least, the reference to Condi Rice and biological weaponry is suspicious because this would have made worldwide news headlines on its own, which it did not.

So with those suspicions in mind....


1) Putting relevant words into a search box on the BBC homepage, and on the BBC South Asia page, does not yield any results.


2) The "BBC" link goes to the following address:

http://65.127.124.62/south_asia/4483241.stm.htm

This is significantly different from a normal BBC address for a story dated a couple of days ago, for example:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4482847.stm

The item above links to a story "India urged to ban toxic ship," which is also dated Monday 25 April 2005.

The difference between the two URLs is highly suspicious.


3) Parsing the URL about the legitimate BBC story, by cutting and pasting
http://news.bbc.co.uk/ into a browser, leads back to the BBC home page.

However, cutting and pasting the equivalent portions of the Cambodian story's URL, http://65.127.124.62/ leads to a page that says "Directory listing denied. This virtual directory does not allow contents to be listed."


4) Last but not least, doing a Whois on bbc.co.uk leads to an obviously legitimate registration which is wholly British, i.e. British postal addresses and name server addresses.

However, doing a whois on http://65.127.124.62/ leads us to the following:

Qwest Communications NET-QWEST-BLKS-4 (NET-65-112-0-0-1)
65.112.0.0 - 65.127.255.255
Integral Corporation Q0725-65-127-124-0 (NET-65-127-124-0-1)
65.127.124.0 - 65.127.124.255

If we check out Integral Corporation, we get http://integralcorp.com, which in turn goes to a webpage that describes the company as a "computer consulting firm, systems integrator, and Internet Service Provider based in Naperville Illinois."

Now why on Earth would the BBC decide to have one of its servers hosted by an independent ISP in Naperville Illinois...? In all probability they would not.


5) Therefore I have to conclude that the "BBC" story is a hoax, fraud, lie, and damned lie. I've just sent email to BBC with the details so they can deal with it on their own.

[gg3]

Oh, ha-ha on me: if I'd bothered reading everyone's comments after the intitial "BBC" link, I could have saved myself having to do all that searching to find that the link was a hoax. Grin.

Though, I think the fake BBC page could convince credulous readers that it's real, and become the source of another nasty falsehood (like "Cuban germ warfare") that's difficult to fix. Not a good thing in these times.

[Madpaddy]

gg3,

They also use the word small twice in the first paragraph. The name Ary Sarey seems contrived and they refer to UN team being dispatched. This also would be very newsworthy.

Last of course and not least - if the story was true then we are all fucked .

PO I can deal with on some level. Hordes of reincarnated Zombies carrying a strain of 100% fatal malaria is a trip to the Liquor store too far.

I'm off to dig a few more feet of the bunker in my bacvk garden.

MP out.

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'O')h, ha-ha on me: if I'd bothered reading everyone's comments after the intitial "BBC" link, I could have saved myself having to do all that searching to find that the link was a hoax. Grin.

Though, I think the fake BBC page could convince credulous readers that it's real, and become the source of another nasty falsehood (like "Cuban germ warfare") that's difficult to fix. Not a good thing in these times.

[BiGG]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('entropyfails', '
')
Don't you find it interesting that Condi Rice told them to "Destroy the virus"? Don't you think that the US would want a sample to do research on? Seems odd to me.

[Madpaddy]

Hello BiGG hello,

It's a joke

[BiGG]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', 'S')trange...

I don't have an account with them but it loads right up.

Toads ABC