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...clear what caused the toads to scatter. Grant, whose research was published this week in the Journal of Zoology, says the toads could have reacted to changes in the earth's magnetic field, alterations in the ionosphere or spikes in the amount of radon gas in the water. "Toads are very sensitive to their environment," she says. Now that at least one potential connection has been drawn between toads and earthquakes, she says, scientists could look for similar reactions in other toad populations that live in seismic areas and are being monitored by conservationists. She suggests exploring how toads respond...
...There was a brief boom of research into whether animals could be used to predict earthquakes in the 1970s, when a few scientists documented changes in the behavior of birds, mice and domestic animals immediately before the earth's beginning to shake. But the idea never gained much traction. The very difficulty of predicting earthquakes makes it hard to study how animals react to them. "This was a completely fortuitous event," says Halliday. "It would be practically impossible to plan research like this. You'd spend a lot of time watching toads with nothing happening." (Read "Why Chile's Quake...
...Some seismologists have doubts about Grant's research, saying the toads' behavior could have just been a fluke. After all, critics say, the L'Aquila earthquake was preceded by minor shocks that also worried the city's residents. "If there was a fright among the toads, it would have been a reflection of the fright that was happening among the people," says Pascal Bernard, a seismologist at the Institute of Earth Physics in Paris. "People were afraid, but nobody knew for certain that something was going to happen...
...Grant, though, is convinced there's a connection. The question now, she says, is whether seismologists can do anything with her research to try to predict the next big one. "A lot of people are asking, 'Can we use them as a kind of monitoring tool, keep one at home and watch to see if they run away?' " says Grant. "That's obviously not going to work." But she's hoping something might...
...can’t dance, and I was a bit put off by the audition notice’s requirement that I be comfortable dancing shirtless in go-go boy pants. But the course of investigative journalism never did run smooth, and so after 10 minutes of YouTube research and some Absolut confidence boosters, I felt ready to go make an ass of myself—so to speak...