Multimedia Reporting (Fred-Musser)

In the pristine tropical forest of El Valle, Panama, Joe Mendelson saw dozens of frogs bobbing in streams, lying on the ground—all dead. In death, the frogs looked much as they had in life, untouched by wounds, unmarked by predators.

They had succumbed to a pandemic; Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, a little understood fungus, is still killing amphibians around the globe in waves. Scientists call it “chytrid” for short.

“The chytrid arrived and wiped out all the amphibians,” said Mendelson, a 1997 University of Kansas graduate and now herpetology curator at Zoo Atlanta. “It was horrible. I’ve had them die in my hand.”

According to a document presented at the 2005 Amphibian Conservation Summit in Washington, DC, at least 122 amphibian species have gone extinct since 1980. Nearly a third of the world’s amphibians, about 1,800, are threatened with extinction. Along with habitat loss, pesticides, climate change and other afflictions, many herpetologists suspect chytrid is contributing to a worldwide amphibian die-off.

Mendelson said that he had seen chytrid kill 80 percent of a region’s amphibians in a matter of months, and eliminate half its amphibian species. He said the pandemic—some compare it to amphibian AIDS—is currently raging in California, the Rocky Mountains, Mexico, all of Central America, the Andes mountains and eastern Australia.

According to Mendelson, the fungus spreads by frog-to-frog contact. Microscopic spores lodge in the amphibians’ skins. Also, when a frog enters the water, the spores can pop out, travel downstream and infect another host.

“It’s kind of ironic, because the spores look sort of like tadpoles,” Mendelson said.

Dave McLeod, a graduate teaching assistant in biology, said some infected frogs display certain symptoms that mark the chytrid infection. These symptoms include lethargy, a generally sick disposition and other odd behaviors.

“In an infected frog, if you flip it over, it’s unable to right itself,” McLeod said.

Mendelson said he had encountered frogs so sick they wouldn’t hop away when he approached them.

McLeod explained the killer fungus afflicts cells that produce keratin, a protein found in both frog and human skin.

“Because the frog uses its skin as a respiratory surface, the infection actually prevents the frog from being able to effectively use its skin to breathe,” McLeod said. “You end up seeing frogs in these mummified states, as they’re in the process of dying or have died, where the skin is completely covered with this fungal infection.”

When the disease gets really bad, Mendelson said pieces of skin begin to fall off.

Mendelson doesn’t know if chytrid is in Kansas. Nor does Joe Collins, a herpetologist with KU’s Kansas Biological Survey.

“Everyone wants answers,” Collins said. “We don’t have answers; there’s not enough money.”

But according to Collins, a failure to fund data-collecting research in Kansas doesn’t mean chytrid is not here. North American bullfrogs are common in Kansas and can carry the disease. Bullfrogs, however, remain mysteriously chytrid-resistant. Collins called the bullfrog “the cow of the amphibians.” It is commercially farmed for frog legs and shipped around the world. Bullfrog tadpoles also can carry chytrid.

“There are bullfrog tadpoles in every fish shipment in the United States,” Collins said.

According to Collins, Kansas farmers could unknowingly introduce the fungus into their own fishing ponds, and just one infected tadpole has the potential to infect the rest of the pond’s amphibian population.

Why should farmers, or others, care about chytrid? Collins said the pandemic could lead to a situation where frogs no longer sing to signal the start of spring, similar to the events described in Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring.” Carson’s 1964 book tackled irresponsible pesticide use. Its first chapter describes a fictional town in heartland America whose springs lack not only birdsong, but also the voices of fish, bees and human children.

“We may be looking at the disappearance of amphibians,” Collins said.

Rafe Brown, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, fears that may happen in the Philippines.

“If the fungus gets introduced there,” Brown said, “literally hundreds of species could go extinct in a matter of years.”

Brown, who specializes in Asian amphibians and reptiles, said the Philippines had more diversity of life than anywhere else on the planet. However, parts of this biological hot-spot have already been devastated by deforestation. In response, Brown and other researchers are currently writing a grant to document vertebrate diversity, which includes amphibians, in the Philippines. The proposed team would also research ways to combat species extinction in the region.

In another diversity hot-spot, Thailand, McLeod, graduate teaching assistant, recently tested frogs for evidence of chytrid’s spread. McLeod said bullfrogs were imported to Thai farms and markets in the 80s. Those imports, along with a thriving Southeast Asian amphibian pet-trade, could easily ignite a Thai outbreak.

Even though McLeod did not find chytrid in Thailand, he said his research was just the first effort. “It’s the beginning of momentum, I hope.”

McLeod called Asia a huge blank spot on the map of chytrid research. His 123-frog survey was the first ever done concerning chytrid and the Asian continent. It does not prove chytrid is absent from Asia.

According to McLeod, since amphibians are extremely sensitive to changes in their environments, they make good environmental indicators. As their populations are declining worldwide, he said they could be our planet’s the canary in the coalmine.

“If they’re our early warning sign,” McLeod said, “how is this going to affect us next and can we prevent it?”

According to Mendelson, the chytrid disease in frogs is eerily similar to HIV, Ebola, and other diseases like SARS, diseases that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta classifies as emerging infectious diseases.

Brown said scientists are finding that the fungus isn’t new, but is for some reason manifesting itself now.

According to Mendelson, the proposition that there could be a connection among everything from SARS to chytrid is the million-dollar question.

“We’d be stupid if we did not pay very close attention to this,” Mendelson said. “Something really terrifying is happening to the planet.”

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For many this holiday season, piles of gifts under a tree will inevitably turn into piles of clutter in closets, floors and garages. So instead of more stuff, some shoppers might get a different kind of gift this year.

“I’ve been a Christmas present by a husband for his wife,” said Lawrence-based professional organizer Barbara Norris.

Professional organizers are people who make money off other’s messes. Norris is a member of a growing body of professional organizers across the nation. According to Barry Izsak, president of the National Association of Professional Organizers, people are heeding society’s message to “get more stuff.”

“There’s more to organize than ever before,” Izsak said.

Izsak said the association, founded in 1985, had doubled its membership from 2,000 organizers in 2003 to about 4,000 in 2006.

He said the association’s members, who specialize in home and office organization, feng shui, and other orderly arts, had served well over 100,000 clients this year.

“The growth we are seeing now is just the tip of the iceberg,” Izsak said.

Norris, who has been a member of the association since February, agreed.

“You know how they have Merry Maids?” Norris said. They’ll have Merry Organizers.”

Norris, a pastor at Community United Church of Christ in Carbondale, Kan., organizes as a part-time job. She said she charges between $30 and $40 per hour for her services and made about $7,000 last year. She said organizing was a good job for her because she likes working for herself and having time for her children.

“My son loves it, and the kids have tried to hire me,” Norris said. "'How much would it cost to pay you to do this?’”

Norris said a large part of her job was purging, that is, getting people to part with their things.

She said she first helps clients decide what they want to keep or purge, and then tells them how to organize and maintain what is left.

“I’ve had a lot of clients who love to shop and they end up buying too much,” Norris said. “It’s hard when you have a lot of things, and you don’t want to purge.”

Norris said entering into a stranger’s home and going through their things was a very personal and intimate experience. She sometimes deals with sensitive personal material, but said she doesn’t judge her clients.

“One job was of a KU professor who had beau coups of books and pornography,” Norris said. “I think he had AIDS; there were needles around.”

According to Katie Bolt-Goeke, owner of Go Get Organized in Lawrence, confidentiality is a big part of the organizing business.

“Most people are pretty embarrassed about their state of affairs,” Bolt-Goeke said.

Bolt-Goeke, a KU graduate in social welfare, said it was demeaning for some clients to call a professional to deal with their problems. She said she has served clients that have hoarding issues and one couple on the verge of divorce.

Bolt-Goeke, executive director at Actions for Adoptions, Inc. is an organizer on the side. She charges $30 per hour and subcontracts work to another organizer. She said she would probably take a business loss this year due too advertising costs. Many people are not aware organizers exist.

“I think it’s in an infancy stage at this point,” Bolt-Goeke said. She later added, “I think it’s a potential for other people.”

Kristin Long, owner of Organizational Specialists, Inc. in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. doesn’t worry about advertising costs. Her appearances on HGTV’s Mission: Organization provides publicity enough.

“Hopefully Oprah will call one of these days,” Long said.

Long employs another organizer and sometimes an administrative assistant to help run her business. She charges $75 per hour for residential organizing, and $100 per hour for businesses. She would not say how much she makes in a year, but did say it was good enough for someone to live on.

“For me this is a full-time job,” Long, a former chemist, said. She added, “November and December are a little bit busier, because people are preparing for the holidays.”

Becky Lawler, Lawrence senior, once gave the gift of organization to an aunt for Christmas.

“It was piled high with stuff,” Lawler said, referring to the aunt’s basement. “Now it’s a usable room.”

Last year Lawler hired Bolt-Goeke to teach her how to organize for her parents, too. Lawler said she went through boxes of her mother’s documents and bills with Bolt-Goeke in an effort to learn organizational skills. She wanted to pass them on to her parents.

“The reason I called a professional organizer is because I wanted to do it also,” Lawler said.

Lawler said she thought she was able to help solve her parents’ paper problem. She said they now have a better idea of what they should throw away.

“With organization, I think it tends to skip a generation,” Lawler said.

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KU researchers are trying to flip a genetic switch and reactivate a gene in patients suffering from sickle cell anemia, possibly providing a cure for a disease afflicting many African-Americans.

Dr. Kenneth Peterson, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, is trying to find drugs that reactivate a gene that turns off soon after birth. The gene, called gamma globin, is known to block the effects of the defective gene that causes sickle cell anemia.

“We want to understand globin gene switching and how they are turned on and off during development,” Peterson said. If we can turn them back on in the adult we can cure the sickeling.”

Peterson, who runs a laboratory at the University of Kansas Medical Center, is using a technique he developed to test drugs that might turn the gamma globin back on. The process uses transgenetic mice—mice bred with the defective sickle cell gene. The defective gene also contains the gamma switch.

“That was our first pioneer 13 years ago, putting huge stretches of human DNA in a mouse,” Peterson said. “But we took it a step further.”

That step was to harvest the human-like cells from the mice. Scientists could then isolate the gamma globin in the defective gene and test drugs to turn it on. The process is detailed in a December 2005 article in the Journal of Biochemistry.

In addition to finding drugs that switch the gamma globin on, Peterson said he would test the drugs to see if they had other effects.

“The goal is to try to come up with tailored treatments for a specific disease,” Peterson said. “Something that won’t have a lot of negative side effects on the body.”

Sickle cell anemia is a genetic disease that affects the body’s red blood cells. Due to the defective gene, many of sufferers’ red blood cells take on a rigid, sickled form.

“Normally red blood cells are like little pillows,” Peterson said.

The cells’ deformity causes sufferers to be chronically anemic, having a low red blood cell count. According to Peterson, the sickled cells do not live as long as normal cells and get caught in blood vessels because of their shape.

The cells’ form and low number can cause several symptoms, including labored breathing, severe bone pain, organ damage and death.

“It’s a very serious disease,” Peterson said. “The life expectancy for people with sickle cell anemia is 40 to 50 years.”

According to Peterson, one in 10 African-Americans carries the disease, and one in 400 has it.

Oluwafemi Morohunfola, Overland Park senior, has sickle cell anemia. Morohunfola, who was born in Nigeria, was diagnosed with the disease when he was 2 years old.

“The first and foremost effect is a lack of endurance,” Morohunfola said.

Morohunfola said that when he is winded, it makes little difference how hard he breathes.

According to Peterson, this is caused by the sickled cells’ inability to carry a normal amount of oxygen from the lungs to the body.

Morohunfola said he also suffers bone crises, bouts of severe pain in his bones and joints.

“It’s like a toothache, except in all your joints,” Morohunfola said. “I have to either take a powerful narcotic or go to the hospital to deal with the pain.”

Morohunfola, who also lost his spleen to the disease, said that his bone crises could be triggered by coldness and that he has to be prepared for unexpectedly cold weather, especially in autumn.

“I think it’s exciting," Morohunfola said about Peterson's research. " I’m glad someone’s making progress on the subject.”

According to Peterson, "this is just a small part of a larger whole."

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