Common Pesticide Atrazine Turns Male Frogs Female

via Flickr’s rcampoamorBeauty| Body| Sexy Atrazine, one of the world’s most widely used pesticides, has a profound effect on the sex lives of adult male frogs, emasculating three-quarters of them and turning one in 10 into females, say scientists at the University of Berkeley.

“These male frogs are missing testosterone and all the things that testosterone controls, including sperm. So their fertility is as low as 10 percent in some cases, and that is only if we isolate those animals and pair them with females,” he said. “In an environment where they are competing with unexposed animals, they have zero chance of reproducing.” via Science Daily

The impact of atrazine on humans isn’t fully understood. In the United States soome 80 million pounds of the herbicide are applied to soil, making it the most common pesticide contaminant of ground and surface water.