Study: Pythons Killing Everglades Wildlife

University of Florida researchers hold a 162-pound Burmese python captured in Everglades National Park, Fla.

(WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.) — A burgeoning population of huge pythons — many of them pets that were turned loose by their owners when they got too big — appears to be wiping out large numbers of raccoons, opossums, bobcats and other mammals in the Everglades, a study says.
The study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that sightings of medium-size mammals are down dramatically — as much as 99 percent, in some cases — in areas where pythons and other large, non-native constrictor snakes are known to be lurking. 
Scientists fear the pythons could disrupt the food chain and upset the Everglades' environmental balance in ways difficult to predict. "The effects of declining mammal populations on the overall Everglades ecosystem, which extends well beyond the national park boundaries, are likely profound," said John Willson, a research scientist at Virginia Tech University and co-author of the study.
Tens of thousands of Burmese pythons, which are native to Southeast Asia, are believed to be living in the Everglades, where they thrive in the warm, humid climate. While many were apparently released by their owners, others may have escaped from pet shops during Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and have been reproducing ever since.
Burmese pythons can grow to be 26 feet long and more than 200 pounds, and they have been known to swallow animals as large as alligators. They and other constrictor snakes kill their prey by coiling around it and suffocating it.
The National Park Service has counted 1,825 Burmese pythons that have been caught in and around Everglades National Park since 2000. Among the largest so far was a 156-pound, 16.4-foot one captured earlier this month.
For the study, researchers drove 39,000 miles along Everglades-area roads from 2003 through 2011, counting wildlife spotted along the way and comparing the results with surveys conducted on the same routes in 1996 and 1997.
The researchers found staggering declines in animal sightings: a drop of 99.3 percent among raccoons, 98.9 percent for opossums, 94.1 percent for white-tailed deer and 87.5 percent for bobcats. Along roads where python populations are believed to be smaller, declines were lower but still notable. 
Rabbits and foxes, which were commonly spotted in 1996 and 1997, were not seen at all in the later counts. Researchers noted slight increases in coyotes, Florida panthers, rodents and other mammals, but discounted that finding because so few were spotted overall. "The magnitude of these declines underscores the apparent incredible density of pythons in Everglades National Park," said Michael Dorcas, a professor at Davidson College in North Carolina and lead author of the study.
Although scientists cannot definitively say the pythons are killing off the mammals, the snakes are the prime suspect. The increase in pythons coincides with the mammals' decrease, and the decline appears to grow in magnitude with the size of the snakes' population in an area. A single disease appears unlikely to be the cause since several species were affected.
The report says the effect on the overall ecosystem is hard to predict. Declines among bobcats and foxes, which eat rabbits, could be linked to pythons' feasting on rabbits. On the flip side, declines among raccoons, which eat eggs, may help some turtles, crocodiles and birds.
Scientists point with concern to what happened in Guam, where the invasive brown tree snake has killed off birds, bats and lizards that pollinated trees and flowers and dispersed seeds. That has led to declines in native trees, fish-eating birds and certain plants.
In 2010, Florida banned private ownership of Burmese pythons. Earlier this month, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a federal ban on the import of Burmese pythons and three other snakes.
Salazar said Monday that the study shows why such restrictions were needed. "This study paints a stark picture of the real damage that Burmese pythons are causing to native wildlife and the Florida economy," he said.

The Beginning of the End for Facebook?

Ben Bajarin is the director of consumer-technology analysis and research at Creative Strategies Inc., a technology industry analysis and market-intelligence firm in Silicon Valley.

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My friends at comScore shared with me that, in September 2011 in the U.S., the average number of minutes that each Facebook user spent on the site was 410. Last year, that month’s average was 287, signaling a 42% increase. Also during September 2011, Facebook commanded 14.7% of total U.S. consumer Internet-usage minutes, the most of any website. Given that the site is still on a growth trend, how could I be crazy enough to ask if it’s the beginning of the end for Facebook? Let’s explore.
One of the things you learn living in Silicon Valley your whole life is how fast things can change. Big companies can come and go in extremely short periods of time. Yahoo! was once what Google is today. MySpace was once what Facebook is today. Innovation happens everywhere and waits for no company.
Rightly or wrongly, what’s caused me to start to evaluate whether Facebook has peaked is my own declining use of the site. I find myself using it less and less each day, sometimes going days or weeks without checking it. Interestingly, I have also observed that many in my network are posting less often. What may be happening is that consumers are experiencing Facebook fatigue.
I recently polled almost 500 high school students in San Jose, and shockingly, not all of them were on Facebook. But perhaps not surprisingly, nearly all who were said they were basically bored with the site and had been using it significantly less.
Now, depending on how heavy of a technology user you are, you may find the idea of Facebook on its way out surprising or not surprising. For example, many of the young people I surveyed conveyed that they were ready for something else. Call me crazy, but I firmly believe that Facebook has either peaked or is on the cusp of peaking.
All of my thinking on this comes, of course, on the heels of news reports about Facebook’s preparing its IPO. But it also comes at a time when Facebook has to overcome negative press due to a settlement with the FTC over privacy issues. Those events are on opposite sides of the spectrum and could potentially be used to argue for or against Facebook’s long-term staying power.


If you’ve been using Facebook for more than a few years and think back to how you used it in the beginning, you’ll most likely remember using it quite frequently for long periods of time. Much of this initial time spent connecting with friends and family or rediscovering old friends was what made Facebook great. Even many who are new to Facebook may still find themselves using it heavily by doing some of those same things.
But at some point, Facebook usage becomes more about profile management and quick checkups than heavy usage. Now, although this isn’t bad, it’s not what Facebook wants as it looks to maintain a large, healthy business.

I’m not entirely sure why a consumer’s usage of Facebook starts out heavy, then gradually declines, but I believe it has something to do with the size of that person’s network of friends, brands, family members, colleagues, acquaintances and brand fan pages. As those numbers go up, Facebook becomes overloaded with information and cluttered with content that’s not that interesting or relevant.
And some recent experiences with apps that are taking a different approach to social networking are slowly convincing me that Facebook may be in trouble. One of those is called Path. Path has been around for about a year but has just received a major update that makes it much more compelling.


The basic concept of Path is that it limits the amount of people you can be friends with, which means you connect only with those you’re genuinely close to. This, in my opinion, is quite compelling, because it’s a case of less being more. The app is designed around the social sharing of life with those closest to you, and the experience delivers on that promise.
Even something like Xbox Live, a social network for Xbox gamers, gives a preview of how people may spend their time engaging with others of like-minded interests.
Pinterest, something I’m hearing is taking quite a bit of time away from Facebook, is another site that’s growing extremely fast. It brings a completely unique approach to interests by wrapping a social experience around it.

What these services all have in common is a focus on something specific, rather than an attempt to try to please everyone. That’s something that may ultimately be disruptive for Facebook. In fact, I suspect that just the idea of managing hundreds or thousands of Facebook friends alone is off-putting to many. So services like the ones I have mentioned may be more appealing and, in turn, draw people away from Facebook.
When I survey the landscape and look at trends, which is one of my jobs as an industry analyst, I see declining usage of Facebook as a significant trend. Taking that into context and combining it with the unique new offerings coming up daily, you can see why I’m asking the question. Facebook may have run its course.
Of course, it’s too early to tell, and Facebook can still innovate and, in essence, disrupt itself. But the social networks that are more focused may turn out to be more interesting to consumers in the future.

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Life possible on 'large parts' of Mars: Study

SYDNEY: Australian scientists who modelled conditions on Mars to examine how much of the red planet was habitable said on Monday that "large regions" could sustain terrestrial life.

Charley Lineweaver's team, from the Australian National University, compared models of temperature and pressure conditions on Earth with those on Mars to estimate how much of the distant planet was liveable for Earth-like organisms.

While just one percent of Earth's volume -- from core to upper atmosphere -- was occupied by life, Linewaver said their world-first modelling showed three percent of Mars was habitable, though most of it was underground.

"What we tried to do, simply, was take almost all of the information we could and put it together and say 'is the big picture consistent with there being life on Mars?'," the astrobiologist told AFP.

"And the simple answer is yes... There are large regions of Mars that are compatible with terrestrial life." Where previous studies had taken a "piecemeal" approach by examining particular sites on Mars for signs of life, Lineweaver said his research was a "comprehensive compilation" of the entire planet using decades of data.

Frozen water has been found at the poles on Mars and the ANU study examined how much of the planet could sustain water "that could be habitable by Earth-like standards by Earth-like microbes".

The low-pressure environment of Mars means water cannot exist as a liquid and will vaporise on the surface, but Lineweaver said the conditions are right underground, where the weight of the soil gives the added pressure required.

It would also be warm enough, at certain depths, for bacteria and other micro-organisms to thrive due to heat from the planet's core.

The average surface temperature on Mars is minus 63 degrees Celsius (minus 81 Fahrenheit).

Lineweaver said his study was "the best estimate yet published of how habitable Mars is to terrestrial microbes" and a significant finding given mankind had evolved from microbial life.

"It's not important if you want to figure out what the laws of physics are and you want to talk to some intelligent aliens who could build spaceships," he said.

"If you're interested in the origin of life and how likely life is to get started on other planets, that's what relevant here."

Lineweaver's paper was published Monday in the scientific journal Astrobiology.