What do frogs and Schlock have in common?

While listening to the NPR podcast How To Do Everything (episode 91) on my way to work I learned something very interesting. I learned that frogs and carbosilicate amorphs have something in common. First, what is a carbosilicate amorph I hear you ask?

This is.

Meet Sargent Schlock of Tagon's Toughs from www.schlockmercenary.com. Schlock was my first descent into webcomics and I'm glad I started with him because Howard Tayler, the creator of this wonderful "pile of poo" started on June 12 / 2000 and hasn't missed a day yet, which means that the archive is very large. Never fear, dear reader. If you want to read Schlock Mercenary you can start any of the storylines easily through the archive link, or simply purchase the physical books. I highly endorse this comic if you are looking for daily comedic epic science fiction.

If you don't know what a frog is, here is one of my favorite ones: Dendrobates azureus a.k.a. the Blue Poison Tree Frog 

These guys are about the size of a paper clip and are deadly poisonous (not venomous - venom needs to be injected, poison is ingested). They live in the Amazon and over the course of many years have had themselves removed the the inner workings of the food chain by the simple fact that anything that eats them dies. While many animals are not very bright, most have learned to steer clear of these little guys. They are often called poison dart frogs because aboriginal tribes apparently use their poison for hunting and warfare.

Anyway on to my musing. According to Albert Lebedev of Moscow State University frogs can secrete different solutions through their skin. Since frogs do not have other defensive measures (teeth, spines, claws, etc) they had to develop something to protect themselves. This is the reason Poison Tree Frogs have the name they do. Apparently frogs can secrete many other kinds of cocktails that are used in killing everything from microbes to viruses and in the podcast he even mentions tumors. Something else he mentions is a vomit inducing mixture that makes it hard to swallow the given frog. There is an article here that give an overview of his research if you want more.

Here is where the connection lies - Schlock also is a chemical plant looking for place to spill over. As seen here (strip from July 5 / 2003) Schlock's chemicals cause the carnivorousness plant to spit him out. Or here (strip from Aug 18 / 2007) Schlock's immune system (visualized by his plasma cannon) expels blood nanies (nanorobots designed to function, interact with, and in this case try to take over physical and mental capacities) from his system. This sounds a lot like what Albert Lebedev was discussing on the podcast. The biggest difference is the Schlock is not from around here and is a lot bigger than any frog on earth.

So the question I have: is this Science fiction mimicking reality or a mad genius just coming up with something cool that happens to be true in reality?

Now isn't that interesting?