This is an illustration how a Gardiner's frog can hear with its mouth. Gardiner's frogs from the Seychelles islands, one of the smallest frogs in the world, do not possess a middle ear with an eardrum yet can croak themselves, and hear other frogs. An international team of scientists using X-rays has now solved this mystery and established that these frogs are using their mouth cavity and tissue to transmit sound to their inner ears. The results are published in PNAS on September 2, 2013.

This image shows a fire salamander. A new species of fungus that eats amphibians' skin has ravaged the fire salamander population in the Netherlands, bringing it close to regional extinction.

This is the femur of Metoposaurus diagnosticus krasiejowensis as viewed from behind (posterior). The sectioned plane is marked by the white stripe. Krasiejów, Poland was a vastly different place 230 million years ago during the Triassic Period. It was part of a giant continent called Pangea, had a warm climate throughout the year, and was populated by giant amphibians that weighed half a ton and were 10 feet long. Metoposaurus diagnosticus was one of these giant amphibians, and its environment had only two seasons: wet and dry. Like modern amphibians, Metoposaurus needed water for its lifestyle, but the extremely long dry season in Triassic Krasiejów drove this species to burrow underground and go dormant when water was scarce.

The idea that men and women are fundamentally different from each other is widely accepted. And throughout the world, this has created distinct ideas about which social and physical characteristics are necessary in each gender to maintain healthy human development.