There are two remarkable things about this recipe. First, Pop Rocks survive being immersed in melted chocolate surprisingly well– they still pop after the chocolate solidifies. Second, the artificial fruit flavor of the Pop Rocks is completely overwhelmed and masked by the bittersweet chocolate. We anticipated a bit of flavor conflict, but the chocolate won out completely, leaving only the pop-whiz-bang of the Pop Rocks.

Link

An expedition on the Nangaritza River of Ecuador, near the border with Peru, has uncovered nearly a dozen species new to science, including four amphibians, a lovely lizard, insects, and plants.

This one above is a species of glass frog, Hyalinobatrachium pellucidum, named after its translucent skin.

These discoveries are hoped to encourage the government to protect the area, which is close to a "peace park" created in the late 90s after decades of conflict. More photos and videos are available from Conservation International.

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by ecoconservant.

In India, a newly discovered color-changing frog has been worshipped as a god. Reji Kumar, the person who found it, keeps the frog in a glass jar at his home where hundreds of people come to see it every day.

Apart from the obvious biological findings this hopping lava lamp can provide, it also gives an additional insight as to how religions and spiritual groups can emerge. I don’t blame them either. Who needs color-saturating hallucinogens for spiritual transcendence when you have a kaleidoscopic animal?

I say this new rainbow frog will become the new symbol for racial equality, just as long as it doesn’t croak (which is actually a concern).

The frog was a dazzling white colour when Reji, who is from Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala, in south India, first spotted it.

Then it changed to yellow and had gone grey by the time he got it home.

“By night the frog was dark yellow, and then it became transparent so you could see its internal organs,” Reji, a life worker, reportedly said.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by robkullberg.

(Links open in a new browser window/tab)

	There’s something very wrong with this kitchen I can’t believe we nearly bought this! A chilling tale of horror for house hunters. Link
	Russian female enjoying an AK-47 I hope everyone was wearing their Kevlar vests – these guns have a bit of a kick to them. Link
	Andy Warhol uses an Amiga 1000 to ‘paint’ Debbie Harry, 1985 Weird to think that the era of Andy Warhol intersected with the computer mouse – and he even seems fairly adept with it. Link
	Monster Truck Does Quite Impressive Backflip And unlike most monster truck flips – I think this one was even on purpose. Link
	Frog escapes from snake after being almost completely ingested A snake has just about swallowed an entire frog when suddenly the frog decides to fight back and eventually escapes up and out of the snake’s stomach. Score one for amphibians! Link

For more the web’s most interesting videos, check out: VideoSift. ]]> http://www.neatorama.com/2009/05/13/24217/feed/ 5 http://www.neatorama.com/2009/05/06/200-new-frog-species-found-madagascar-shut-down-everything/ http://www.neatorama.com/2009/05/06/200-new-frog-species-found-madagascar-shut-down-everything/#comments Wed, 06 May 2009 05:43:53 +0000 Alex http://www.neatorama.com/2009/05/06/200-new-frog-species-found-madagascar-shut-down-everything/
A newfound frog species in the Boophis genus, photo: Miguel Vences

After finding more than a hundred new frog species in Madagascar over the past 15 years, scientists thought that they’d found everything – but a new study done by a team of international scientists had found up to 221 new species in the island country:

The work suggests that tropical amphibian diversity has been underestimated at an "unprecedented level" worldwide, the study authors write in the May 4 online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"People think that we know which plant and animal species live on this planet," team member Miguel Vences, of the Technical University of Braunschweig in Germany, said in a statement.

"But the century of discoveries has only just begun—the majority of life-forms on Earth is still awaiting scientific recognition."

Link

Which brings us to the obligatory statement from the President of Madagascar:

With apologies to the scientists

She said she heard a frog squealing and assumed that a snake had got into her garden was was eating one of the hundreds of amphibians that live near her house.

Kerry continued: "I was having coffee at about 6.30 in the morning when I heard some squealing and splashing in my pool – like a frog in distress.

"My first thought was ‘oh no, it’s a snake, how am I going to get rid of it?’. But when I went over for a closer to look I saw it was a frog trying to eat another one."

Link (Photo: Kerry Roberts)

The Daily Dozen feature on National Geographic, edited by photo editor Susan Welchman, is a treasure trove of neat "Your Shots" photos submitted by the magazine’s readers (a selection of which will actually appear on the magazine itself – talk about awesome!).

I particularly like this one, submitted by James Snyder who wrote:

This is a Cuban tree frog on a tree in my backyard in southern Florida. How and why he ate this light is a mystery. It should be noted that at the time I was taking this photo, I thought this frog was dead having cooked himself from the inside. I’m happy to say I was wrong. After a few shots he adjusted his position. So after I was finished shooting him, I pulled the light out of his mouth and he was fine. Actually, I might be crazy but I don’t think he was very happy when I took his light away.

Link to the Daily Dozen (this particular shot by James appeared on the April – Week 1 section)

After being dug up from hibernation by a burrowing dog, thereby shattering his leg, "Brullie" the frog underwent surgery and was fitted with a tiny steel rod to repair his broken lower leg bone.

Doting owner Anne Mearns, 62, said: ‘People think I’m mad to care so much about a frog but I couldn’t bear to see him in so much pain.

‘Frogs are famous for their legs, so the thought of Brullie being left lame broke my heart. I knew without surgery he would never move again, so I to rushed to the vet and begged him to operate.

The vet was more used to saving cats and dogs and couldn’t understand why I was so worried about a frog, but he eventually agreed.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by see_you_@_de_pawty_Richter.

Catherine Brahic of New Scientist blog wrote a pretty neat post about the weirdest animals species of 2008. Take, for instance, the "bone breaking horror frog":

“Amphibian horror” isn’t a movie genre, but on this evidence perhaps it should be. In May, biologists described a hairy frog that actively breaks its own bones to produce claws that puncture their way out of the frog’s toe pads, probably when it is threatened.

Link