The toadfish, with its huge head, small body and slimy skin, may well rank as the ugliest creature in animaldom. Sailors hate the toadfish because it croaks so loudly that it confuses sonar signals; fishermen despise it because it is as inedible as the overalls in Mrs. Murphy's chowder. Piled up on beaches from Cape Cod to Florida, it smells like rotten whale. Yet even mudcolored toadfish can be heroes.
Last week at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., cancer researchers intently observed 60 toadfish injected with an experimental anticancer drug, methyl GAG (for glyoxal-bis-gua-nylhydrazone). The researchers were trying to...
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