New Zealand scientists have found what appears to be a cure for the disease that is responsible for wiping out many of the world’s frog populations.
Chloramphenicol, currently used as an eye ointment for humans, may be a lifesaver for the amphibians, they say.
The researchers found frogs bathed in the solution became resistant to the killer disease, chytridiomycosis.
The fungal disease has been blamed for the extinction of one-third of the 120 species lost since 1980.
Story from the BBC News website: Frog killer fungus ‘breakthrough’
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.
Heard about this – the wrinkle is that a frog will have to be exposed to the solution for quite a while (think course of antibiotics). So whilst it may be great for captive frogs – may not be so great for the wild ones.
I heard the disease is caused by AGW….
nah, just stirring
A GW link has been tried with “The infectious disease Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, which is caused by the chytrid fungus, has already been shown to have increased in Central and South America due to warming temperatures.”
I am sure that Luke would be hopping mad that the kiwis were one jump ahead of Real Climate
If chloramphenicol could be deployed against this fungus in a workable manner, greenpeacers would campaign against its use because of “unknown catastrophic environmental side effects of immense magnitude.”
Sounds like a fulltime job, daubing frogs with Visine.
Job security. Get to fart about in the great outdoors. How much does it pay?
Daubing the frogs would make the red-eyed tree frog an endangered species. See
http://allaboutfrogs.org/info/species/redeye.html