“A farm irrigation canal would seem a healthier place for toads than a ditch by a supermarket parking lot. But…scientists have found the opposite is true. In a study with wide implications for a longstanding debate over whether agricultural chemicals pose a threat to amphibians…zoologists have found that toads in suburban areas are less likely to suffer from reproductive system abnormalities than toads near farms where some had both testes and ovaries.

“As you increase agriculture…you have an increasing number of abnormalities.”…the study’s results may have important implications not only for other wild species, but also for people….” Full Slice

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