Born to Be Wild: Sick of boring science books? Try Pamela S. Turner's 'The Frog Scientist.'

Photograph by David Paul Morris/ Getty Images for SLJ.

It was pretty funny. I was in Southern California at a conference, and they were up in Montana. They were going to these really remote lakes and trying to take some water samples and find some frogs. They went on a 35-mile hike—I kid you not—the day before. Tyrone’s got this maniacal level of energy, and he only sleeps three or four hours a night.

Oh, my God.

We were meeting in Sinclair, WY, in the middle of nowhere, and there was no cell phone service. Tyrone said, “I won’t be getting there until 11 or 12 o’clock at night. We’ll just have to meet on the main drag.” I said, “Tyrone, is there a store or a fast-food place or some place that we can meet? How am I going to find you?” He laughed and said, “There’s going to be a car with two black men and two Asian girls driving through Sinclair, WY, at midnight. How hard do you think it’s going to be to spot us?”

That’s very funny.

Tyrone’s been pulled over when he takes his students on these trips. As a matter of fact, I got pulled over by the cops in Sinclair. I don’t know if they thought I was cruising, looking for customers. I think they saw this blond woman driving up and back slowly. I don’t know what was going through their minds, but I actually got pulled over.

The odds of Tyrone becoming a world-class scientist were extremely slim.

He had a really inspiring personal story. He was born in South Carolina, actually in a colored hospital, in 1967. His grandmother still lives in a house that was built on land given to them by their former slave owner. And he was the first person in his family to graduate from college. He really didn’t know what to do with his interest in frogs. Obviously, a very intelligent young man, really good grades, high test scores, got into Harvard.

I love how he heard about Harvard while watching an episode of Green Acres—and it was the only school he applied to!

He told me that people later asked him, “Wow, you were that confident to only apply to one school, to only apply to Harvard?” And he laughed and said, “No, I was that dumb.”

Tyrone studies the effects of common pesticides, such as atrazine, on frogs. Why is his research so important?

As he says in the book, even if you don’t care about frogs, even if you don’t care that amphibian populations are declining all over the world, you should care about the implications for human health.

What are some of the potential dangers?

The New York Times recently reported on studies that suggest a link between atrazine exposure and birth defects, low birth weights, and menstrual problems—and these health effects seem to happen at concentrations that meet EPA standards for drinking water. Now the EPA says it’s going to do a new evaluation of atrazine, looking at those issues plus possible links to cancer. Farm workers who apply atrazine have abnormally low sperm counts, too. Tyrone likes to point out that pesticide exposure is about social justice as well as health. Farm workers likely suffer the worst health effects yet have little say in what’s going on.

I see you brought a friend to the photo shoot. Is that your pet Australian White’s tree frog?

Yes, that is the famous Dumpy F. Lumpy. I got her when I was writing The Frog Scientist. I’ve had her for about three years. I bought her ostensibly to take on school visits, but really just ’cause I thought she was incredibly cute.