Biologist Rick Shine of Macquarie University discusses his pioneering project using CRISPR to create cannibalistic tadpoles that feast on cane toad eggs, aiming to tackle Australia’s invasive cane toad crisis. Elizabeth Kolbert, a journalist from The New Yorker, shares her insights on similar conservation efforts and the ethical dilemmas they entail. Together, they explore the unexpected consequences of manipulating nature, the tragic history of the cane toads’ introduction, and the fragile balance of ecosystems.
18:49
forum Ask episode
web_stories AI Snips
view_agenda Chapters
menu_book Books
auto_awesome Transcript
info_circle Episode notes
question_answer ANECDOTE
Cannibalistic Tadpoles Behavior
Cane toad tadpoles in Australia display intense cannibalism by eating freshly laid eggs in their pond.
This behavior is a survival strategy due to competition for food among abundant toad populations.
insights INSIGHT
Peter Pan Tadpoles Concept
"Peter Pan" tadpoles are genetically engineered to never mature into adult toads.
They consume the eggs of other toads, reducing recruitment and potentially controlling the invasive population.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Careful Testing of Gene Editing
Proceed slowly and carefully when introducing genetically modified animals to ecosystems.
Conduct comprehensive trials in labs, enclosures, and isolated water bodies to assess all impacts and prevent unintended consequences.
Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode
In Under a White Sky, Elizabeth Kolbert takes a hard look at the new world we are creating. She meets biologists trying to preserve the world's rarest fish, engineers turning carbon emissions to stone in Iceland, Australian researchers developing a 'super coral' to survive on a hotter globe, and physicists contemplating shooting tiny diamonds into the stratosphere to cool the earth. Kolbert explores how human civilization's capacity for destruction has reshaped the natural world and how the very interventions that have imperiled our planet are increasingly seen as the only hope for its salvation. The book is by turns inspiring, terrifying, and darkly comic.
South American cane toads were brought to Australia in 1935 to help eradicate native beetles that were destroying sugar cane crops. The toads didn’t care much for the beetles, but they did spread across the coast of Queensland and beyond, with no natural predators to stop them. Their own deadly toxin devastated local reptiles along the way, and they now number over 200 million.
Invasive biologists have long tried to curb Australia’s cane toad population. The newest approach uses CRISPR gene-editing technology to create cannibalistic “Peter Pan” cane toad tadpoles: tadpoles that don’t fully mature and instead feast on the tens of thousands of eggs that the toads produce.
How was this approach developed, and how do these researchers think about making a potentially massive change to the ecosystem? Biologist Rick Shine, who has led the effort, joins Host Flora Lichtman to discuss it. Later, science journalist Elizabeth Kolbert talks about her experience reporting on similar monumental efforts to control nature—and what they say about us.
Guests: Elizabeth Kolbert is a staff writer at The New Yorker and author of Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future (Crown, 2021). She’s based in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Dr. Rick Shine is a professor of biology at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.
Science Friday 
