Posted on 08/16/2005 3:13:47 PM PDT by jb6
BERLIN (AP) -- More than 1,000 toads have puffed up and exploded in a Hamburg pond in recent weeks, and scientists still have no explanation for what's causing the combustion, an official said Wednesday.
Both the pond's water and body parts of the toads have been tested, but scientists have been unable to find a bacteria or virus that would cause the toads to swell up and pop, said Janne Kloepper, of the Hamburg-based Institute for Hygiene and the Environment.
"It's absolutely strange," she said. "We have a really unique story here in Hamburg. This phenomenon really doesn't seem to have appeared anywhere before."
The toads at a pond in the upscale neighborhood of Altona have been blowing up since the beginning of the month, filling up like balloons until their stomachs suddenly burst.
"It looks like a scene from a science-fiction movie," Werner Schmolnik, the head of a local environment group, told the Hamburger Abendblatt daily. "The bloated animals suffer for several minutes before they finally die."
Biologists have come up with several theories, but Kloepper said that most have been ruled out.
The pond's water quality is no better or worse than other bodies of water in Hamburg, the toads did not appear to have a disease, and a laboratory in Berlin has ruled out the possibility that it is a fungus that made its way from South America, she said.
She said that tests will continue. In the meantime, city residents have been warned to stay away from the pond.
If only the democrats would explode after all their huffing and puffling....
"May the good Lord take a likin' to ya' and blow ya' up real soon!"
-Billy Sol Hurok & Big Jim McBob.
Puffed up toads. How French.
Toads can't fart and when they get gas they explode. The puzzle is to discover what's giving them gas - probably something in the pond is partly fermented.
And I just made that up.
How many times are we gonna recycle this. I've had to have seen this a hundred times already.
"How wise you are sir knight in the ways of science"
Not only has this been posted before, but it is old news. What is that source by the way? When I clicked on the link for the article, I got some kind of Eurotrash blog site that appeared to be a really lame imitation of a news posting board.
they are muslim suicide bomber-frogs...
Them ain't no toads, them's Koozbanian Galleo-Hoop-Hoops.
Look for a teenager with a microwave.
A kid with a bottle of x-lax.
They blowed up real good!
As the Muppets chase Crazy Donald around in the background for another blast, Wally ponders love on other planets. Cut to Kermit, reprising his reporter's role from "Sesame Street" reporting from the planet Koozbane on the time of courtship. A male alien meets a giggling female and dances crazily around her. The female laughs and whips the male with her long nose (!) signaling the legendary never-before-seen-on-television Galleo Hoop Hoop.
The two march far away from each other than run toward each other eventually colliding, exploding into a quartet of baby Koozebanians. [This sketch would be performed again in episode 7 of The Muppet Show, starring Florence Henderson.]
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