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These species skip the tadpole stage entirely, an incredibly rare phenomenon among toads and frogs. In A Nutshell Scientists identified three new toad species in Tanzania that give birth to live babies instead of laying eggs, bringing the global total of live-bearing frogs and toads to just 20 species. DNA extracted from museum specimens collected in 1899 helped researchers solve a 115-year-old mystery about where these toads actually live, with genetic analysis showing populations previously thought to be one species are actually four distinct species separated by mountain ranges. The newly described species face serious conservation threats, with ranges as...

A frog extinct for the last 30 years may be brought back to life. In a scientific breakthrough that has opened frontiers to saving species in catastrophic decline from becoming extinct, the genome of an extinct Australian frog has been revived and reactivated by a team of scientists using sophisticated cloning technology to implant a “dead” cell nucleus into an egg from another frog species. The bizarre gastric-brooding frog Rheobatrachus silus—which swallowed its eggs, brooding its young in its stomach and gave birth through its mouth—became extinct in 1983. The “Lazarus Project” team has been able to recover cell nuclei...

PARIS (AP) -- France's prime minister pledged Sunday that anyone involved in anti-Semitic acts will be caught and punished -- a promise made on the 60th anniversary of France's roundup of Jews sent to Nazi death camps. ``To harm the Jewish community is to harm France, harm the values of our Republic which can leave no room for anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia,'' Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said at a gathering of 1,000 people at the Square of Jewish Martyrs. The square marks the site where a bicycle stadium was used on July 16 and 17, 1942, as a transit camp to...