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Trouble for psychedelic toads

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Back in the 1960s, it was discovered that secretions from toads native to the Sonoran Desert have psychedelic properties.  The information did not have much impact for over 40 years but about ten years ago, the story started having widespread exposure in U.S. media outlets and there was increasing publicity for the fact that the toad’s dried secretions could be smoked to produce a brief but intense high.

There was also a false narrative spreading around that this so-called toad medicine was part of an ancient practice of indigenous tribes in the Sonoran Desert.  The active agent in the toad secretion is a compound called 5-MeO-DMT and it became an increasingly popular item being sold by self-described shamans, new-age healers, and other underground practitioners. 

5-MeO-DMT is mostly banned as a controlled substance in the U.S., but many Mexican ranchers have been amassing the toads to sell to foreigners to take back home.  Despite the fact that 5-MeO-DMT has been successfully synthesized, the mystique surrounding the toads makes potential users want to use the natural version.

Researchers have found that trapping the toads in Mexico has decimated several populations of the amphibians and has sent others into steep decline. The species currently has no protections in Mexico.  These desert toads play key roles as both predators and prey and as their population declines, there are likely to be some serious ecological problems.  There is already anecdotal evidence that in many places in the desert, crop-eating insect populations have surged in recent years.

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These Toads Have Psychedelic Powers, but They’d Prefer to Keep It Quiet

Photo, posted December 12, 2017, courtesy of K.S. Black via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

It’s only getting warmer

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Climate science is not popular with the current administration.  Phrases like “climate crisis”, “clean energy”, and “climate science” itself are prohibited from websites, reports, regulations, and other communications by government employees and federal funding recipients.  Once again, the United States is turning away from climate mitigation efforts and will have a drastically reduced ability to forecast disasters and head off their worst consequences.

Meanwhile, global warming continues, and the planet can’t withdraw from its consequences.

The hottest year in nearly two centuries was recorded in 2024.  According to a new report by the World Meteorological Organization, there is an 80% chance that at least one year over the next four will surpass 2024 as the warmest year on record. 

The consequences of warming will probably vary widely across the world.  But likely occurrences include rapid thawing of Arctic Sea ice, drier seasons in the Amazon, excess rain in places like Alaska, northern Europe, and the Sahel in north-central Africa.  Hotter temperatures lead to more evaporation of water from plants and soil, leading to droughts and failed crop seasons.  The warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, which increases the chance of flooding from downpours and stronger hurricanes.

Ignoring what is going on with the climate or thinking that it will only impact other people in other places is nothing short of foolhardy.  The planet does not care about politics.  What is happening to the climate will be in just about everyone’s backyard soon enough.

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‘It’s pretty bleak’: A warming planet is poised to get even hotter, forecasters warn

Photo, posted December 1, 2015, courtesy of Adam Matsumoto via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The problem of mountain lions

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Mountain lions – also known as pumas, cougars, and even sometimes panthers – are the most widely distributed wild land mammal in the world.  They are found from Canada to South America.  There are an estimated 30,000 mountain lions in the United States, mostly in the West, but there are also mountain lions from the Midwest to the East Coast. 

Unlike wolves or grizzly bears, mountain lions are not managed by the federal government; they are managed by states and state regulations vary greatly.  In some places, hunting mountain lions is banned completely; in other places, it is always open season.

As more people encroach on wild land – building homes and small farms, as well as hiking and biking – the numbers of encounters between people and mountain lions are increasing.  And when mountain lions lose their fear of people, there is trouble.

Since 1890, there have been at least 32 fatal mountain lion attacks on humans and more than 170 non-fatal attacks.  California has seen the most attacks in the last 40 years with 22 people injured and four killed.  Despite this, Californians passed a ballot initiative in 1990 that bans all hunting of mountain lions.

There are strategies to reduce habituation and instill fear of humans in mountain lions.  One is called “tree-and-free” that uses dogs to chase mountain lions up trees.  But there are opponents of this and other measures employed. 

The fact is that there are simply too many mountain lions living in close proximity to humans and peaceful coexistence is very difficult to achieve.  Places where hunting lions is permitted have few problems with them, but that is not a solution that is acceptable in many places.  It’s a difficult problem.

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Deadly Encounter: Mountain Lion Attacks Spark Controversy

Photo, posted March 26, 2013, courtesy of the USFWS via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Detecting dangerous chemicals with plants

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Researchers at University of California Riverside have been studying how to enable plants to sense and react to a chemical in the environment without damaging their ability to function in all other respects.  Why do this?  The idea is to be able to use plants as environmental sensors that can detect the presence of harmful substances.

The impetus for the work is presence of a protein in plants that senses a plant hormone called abscisic acid (or ABA) that helps plants acclimate to environmental changes.  During drought, plants produce ABA causing the plant to produce ABA receptor proteins that close pores in its leaves and stems, keeping in moisture.

The UCR researchers demonstrated that these ABA receptor proteins can be trained to bind to chemicals other than ABA.  This ability enabled them to create sensors for many chemicals, including banned pesticides.

In their recent publication, they demonstrated a green plant that turns bright red in the presence of azinphos-ethyl, a banned pesticide.  The goal is to easily detect chemicals in the environment from a distance.  A field of these plants would provide an obvious visual indicator of the use of a banned pesticide.  The researchers also demonstrated the ability to turn a variety of yeast into a sensor that could respond to two different chemicals at the same time.

Ultimately, it would be extremely valuable to design plants that sense dozens of chemicals to they could be used as living sensors that persist for years and provide environmental information.  The sensor plants are not being grown commercially at this time.  That will require regulatory approvals that are likely to take years.  But the discovery opens up real possibilities.

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Plants transformed into detectors of dangerous chemicals

Photo, posted August 29, 2013, courtesy of the United Soybean Board via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Hyping Electric Cars | Earth Wise

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During this year’s Super Bowl, at least three car companies – GM, Porsche, and Audi – ran commercials for plug-in cars.  This is a sign that automakers are ramping up their efforts to persuade the public that electric cars really are the future.

The auto industry is investing billions of dollars to develop electric vehicles, spurred by stricter emissions rules in places like California and concerns about climate change.  In fact, more than 100 new plug-in models are expected to become available in the United States over the next five years.

In Europe, electric cars are increasingly popular.  Norwegians, for example, buy more electric cars than gas cars.  And several European countries have banned the sale of gas cars starting in 2025.

But in the US, enthusiasm for electric cars has been slow to build.  Automakers sold fewer than 330,00 electric vehicles in the US in 2019 and more than half of those were from Tesla, which actually does not even advertise its vehicles.

The auto industry spent nearly $9 billion in national and local advertising in the US last year, but less than half a percent of that went toward promoting electric vehicles.

A big part of the problem is that car dealers are not very enthusiastic about selling electric cars, which require far less maintenance than conventional cars and have far fewer costly replacement parts to sell.   As a result, the industry’s efforts to speed the transition to electric cars has been ambivalent at best.

World-wide, Tesla has sold about a million cars, mostly in the past 4 years, so there is clearly a growing demand for electric vehicles.  It is up to the rest of the industry to create demand for the new cars they have committed to produce.

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Super Bowl Ads Hyped Electric Cars. But Will Anyone Buy Them?

Photo, posted October 6, 2018, courtesy of Mike Fonseca via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Rosewood Trade

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Illegal trafficking in endangered flora and fauna is a topic of great interest and concern.  We hear a lot about elephant ivory, rhino horn, and even pangolin scales.  It turns out that the most trafficked form of flora or fauna in the world is actually rosewood.  According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, rosewood is traded more than ivory, rhino horn, and pangolin scales put together as measured either by volume or economic value.  According to Earthsight, a London-based nonprofit that investigates environmental crime, rosewood might account for 40% of overall illegal species trade.

Almost all rosewood is headed to China, where the beautiful wood is used in traditional hongmu furniture.   A single bed made from particularly desirable Madagascar rosewood can cost a million dollars.

The illegal rosewood trade has decimated many species of the trees around the world.  A tiny village in Madagascar has seen its population grow by 5,000 in recent years because of migrants coming to work as rosewood loggers.  The rosewood trade has been banned in Madagascar for decades, but a well-established system of bribes has effectively eliminated that problem.  Corruption at all levels allows Madagascar rosewood to find its way onto ships and off to China.

In 2017, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora listed all of the world’s rosewood species under its Appendix II, prohibiting all trade except in the rare cases where a local CITES authority issues sustainability permits.

As is the case for other trafficked endangered species, until the demand for the products disappears, people will find a way to make them available.  And meanwhile, these beautiful trees are rapidly disappearing.

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The Rosewood Trade: An Illicit Trail from Forest to Furniture

Photo, posted November 17, 2007, courtesy of Larry Jacobsen via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

WAMC Northeast Public Radio

WAMC/Northeast Public Radio is a regional public radio network serving parts of seven northeastern states (more...)