Frog Resembles X-Men's Wolverine

sciencehabit writes "Scientists have discovered a frog with retractable claws that pierce its skin every time they come out. What's more, the researchers believe the frog heals itself after pulling its claws back in."

Sweet!

[Plazmid]

Now if we could only find the genes responsible for making the retractable claws and get gene therapy to work...

Re:Sweet!

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

Gonna have to update the X-Men movie.

"Do you know what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning? It extracts its claws and starts shredding ass."

Re:

[Heather D]

And it's the best frog there is at what it does.

Re:

[Renraku]

Genes just don't work that way.

Think of genes as a blueprint..the blueprint everyone is familiar with. And you have a five story building on that blueprint.

You don't build the building from the ground up. First you have to build the structure and foundation, and make sure its all stable. Then you can start working your way from the outside, in. Or from the inside, out in some cases. But the important part is the scaffolding. The scaffold being the egg or the womb or the seed or whatever. A lot of the

Re:Sweet!

[Wandering Wombat]

This is why the Michael Moore X-Men Documentary did so poorly at the box office...

Re:

[rkanodia]

I'd say a better analogy would be that genes are like a recipe, or a piece of software (same thing?). A blueprint is a diagram of what the finished product will be like. A recipe is a set of processes to follow to create the product.

Maybe the bone spur was added to the frog's un-Wolverine-like ancestor by inserting "Simmer the small pan for 3 minutes while stirring in sugar" in between lines 62345 and 62346 of the recipe, but it's not that easy to do in humans. After all, who the hell knows what we have

Re:

[OneLeggedNinja]

Nah, lopping off limbs is so barbaric. A simpler solution is to hit undo several billion times until you get to your "seed" state, next insert your updated code, and then fast forward ... and presto: brand new, claw sporting individual.

Neat

[bobwrit]

Now, let's use it as a weapon.

Obligatory...

[J'ai Friedpork]

Famous Last Words

Re:

[ILuvRamen]

hey who says nobody has? Remember the best slashdot story EVER about the australian military being called in to handle an invasion of frogs in part of Australia? (if you don't remember it, seriously go look it up) You don't just send in the military for frogs. Obviously they were clawed war frogs send by terrorists ;)

I'm the Duke of Wellington, you insensitive clod!

[Bloke down the pub]

You don't just send in the military for frogs.

Depends which kind of frogs. There's one kind that are timid, slimy, disorganised creatures with little capacity for organised aggression, and then there's the ones that are a bit like toads.

But

[adona1]

Unless the claws help it cross a busy road and jump on logs & the backs of turtles, it probably won't assist frogs in the long term...

Grammar 101

[BiggerIsBetter]

Which of the following are appropriate use of an apostophe?

1) To form possessives of nouns
2) To show the omission of letters
3) To indicate certain plurals of lowercase letters.
4) Look out! Here comes an s!

Re:Grammar 101

[Vectronic]

2) To show the omission of letters

Resemblifies = Resemble's, duhh...

Re:

[Vectronic]

OMG what a capastrophe!!

Re:

[LearnToSpell]

It's 2, of course, but you forgot it in apost'ophe.

And, as always, http://www.angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif [angryflower.com]

Re:

[jonadab]

I'm just waiting for people to start putting apostrophes in possessive personal pronouns: her's, hi's, it's... Oh, wait, they already do that last one.

Re:

[Brynath]

I'm just waiting for people to start putting apostrophes in possessive personal pronouns: her's, hi's, it's... Oh, wait, they already do that last one.

That is called "it is" which is a valid word.

Re:

[jonadab]

Yes, and that ought to be obvious, but I'm afraid sometimes people get them confused and use it's for the possessive by analogy with nouns.

I've also seen "your's" occasionally, which for some reason doesn't bother me as much as switching "your" with "you're". I haven't yet seen me's. I've seen I's and they's, but not as possessives. (The uses of those that I've seen were contractions for "I is" and "they is", respectively, subject-verb agreement rules notwithstanding).

Re:

[Brynath]

Yuck!! I's sick at the thought of that
err I mean
I is...
I am...
No really I am.

Re:

[MagicM]

5) As a glottal stop [wikipedia.org].

Ko'tal.

Re:

[immcintosh]

Or for maybe a more familiar example, Hawai'i. Although in that example the apostrophe has come to actually be neglected most of the time. (Hawaiian language is full of glottal stops; almost every island has one in its name)

Re:

[AhtirTano]

Except for the fact that we don't generally write glottal stops in English. In one of the few cases were we do, we use a hyphen: uh-oh (and not everyone does that).

Re:

[geekoid]

5) In a way the irritate's the grammar police the worst.

How about retractable...

[gardyloo]

apostrophes? That'd be sweet.

Re:

[ari_j]

Apo'strophe's'

Re:How about retractable...

[zippthorne]

The frog's name is resemble. The article is about his wolverine doll.

Re:

[batquux]

Please, it's an action figure!

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Loudly and repetitively.

resemble's?

[thedak]

"resemble's"? really now?

And yeah, definitely have to isolate that gene and get me some gene therapy. What I wouldn't give for some wolverine-style retractable claws.

Re:

[maxume]

With no adamantium you'd have the craze inducing fragile bone claws. I imagine it would hurt a rather large amount.

Re:

[MarkAyen]

That's not the worst of it. Without Wolverine's regenerative abilities, having the claws pop out through your skin would be a real limited-use thing.

Re:

[maxume]

The summary implies that the frog has extra healing ability, so I was giving the benefit of the doubt to the gene splicers.

Wolfie?

[KilgoreTroutman]

A frog that dresses in tight black leather and looks like Hugh Jackman? Are you sure you didn't just discover the French stuntman for the next X-Men movie?

Re:Wolfie?

[chill]

It was the cigar and bad attitude that gave it away.

Re:

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

Wait what? Wolverine is played by Duke Nukem?

I see the lawsuit now

[Anonymous Coward]

Marvel Comics Group sues nature for $1.5 Billion

Re:

[bobwrit]

...and wins

Re:

[Supurcell]

Nature files for bankruptcy.

Re:

[dpilot]

Then nature "offers" to release a gigaton or so of methane hydrates unless the ruling is overturned.

As long as you don't have large-scale space transportation, colonies, etc, you can't beat Planet Earth.

Frog like wolverine?

[jollyreaper]

Guess he doesn't like Cyclops, either.

Re:

[Antique Geekmeister]

He does keep stalking that red-haired fox.

New Addition to Frog Vocabulary

[AbsoluteXyro]

What do froggies say? SNIKT!

Additionally

[Fieryphoenix]

Also, the frogs grow mutton chops.

Re:

[Mr. Competence]

You mean like this [newscientist.com]?
Males of the species, which grows to about 11 centimetres, also produce long hair-like strands of skin and arteries when they breed.

Re:

[norminator]

Wow, according to the article you linked to, the frogs actually break their own bones to pop the claws out.

These frogs really are badass.

Re:

[geekoid]

Meh, I've done worse to get laid.

What's more...

[bchernicoff]

What's more, the researchers believe the frog heals itself after pulling its claws back in.

If the frog didn't heal after pulling the claws back then the claws wouldn't be piercing its skin

Re:

[aXis100]

I thought that too at first, but then realised:

1) The first time they're used, the claw will pierce the skin
2) The claws may not retract, and even if they do the wound may or may not heal
3) If they do retract, subsequent times they might come out the same open wound.

Re:

[Junior J. Junior III]

I know, I have to tear new holes in my forearms every time I get into a bar fight. Stupid healing factor! Ribbit!

Am I the only one...

[BattleApple]

that was expecting to see a frog with enormous sideburns?

I'm actually kinda disappointed.

Superpowers

[H0D_G]

Wait, so Toad should have claws instead?

Re:

[Petrushka]

Wait, so Toad should have claws instead?

Ye gods and little fishlets! Let Badgers, Rats, and Moles everywhere watch out.

New 2008 Stocking stuffer

[EEPROMS]

I can see this as the must have pet this Christmas..

Little Kid" Meh, its just a frog (SWOOOSH!!) COOOL!! CLAAAWS!!...(evil glint in eyes), Hey sis want to see my new pet"

Resembles Wovlerine?

[Qbertino]

Well, I personally think the eyes are a bit big, the mouth a little to wide and it lacks the sideburns but then again the only version of Wolverine I know and care about is the one played by Hugh Jackman in the recent X-Men movies.
Maybe the older comic version of Wolverine are closer to the mark ... that would explain why I'm not really interested in them. :-)

*Ta-Dum!* *Crash!* *Thud!* ... Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week. Try the fish.

From birth

[Thelasko]

So, are this frog's claws present at birth, or are they a side effect of an experiment involving adamantium?
end sarcasm

Wrong pic

[Cowclops]

The stock frog picture in the article isn't even an African Clawed Frog. They look more like this: http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/frogs/gallery/featured.php?image=6&page=featured/index [amnh.org]

And live underwater.

Re:

[BioTeX]

No, they're not talking about clawed frogs (family Pipidae), which have ordinary non-retractable, keratin claws. These Artholeptidae frogs have claws made of sharpened bone that pierce through the skin, something really unprecedented. So yeah, African frog with claws != African clawed frog

Obligitory...

[7Prime]

Hello my baby,
Hello my darlin'
Hello my rag time gal!