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Python hunt in Everglades nets just 68: organizers
Hundreds of hunters spent a month combing Florida’s Everglades for Burmese pythons, in the end capturing and killing 68 of the slithery, invasive reptiles, organizers said Saturday.
The longest was 14 feet and three inches, netting the hunter who brought it in a $1,000 prize.
68 may not be a lot in total, but that is hundreds, maybe thousands of snake offspring that will not be decimating small mammals and birds in south Florida.
Predators can influence the exchange of carbon dioxide between ecosystems and the atmosphere by altering ecosystem processes such as decomposition and primary production, according to food web theory1, 2. Empirical knowledge of such an effect in freshwater systems is limited, but it has been suggested that predators in odd-numbered food chains suppress freshwater carbon dioxide emissions, and predators in even-numbered food chains enhance emissions2, 3. Here, we report experiments in three-tier food chains in experimental ponds, streams and bromeliads in Canada and Costa Rica in the presence or absence of fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus) and invertebrate (Hesperoperla pacifica and Mecistogaster modesta) predators. We monitored carbon dioxide fluxes along with prey and primary producer biomass. We found substantially reduced carbon dioxide emissions in the presence of predators in all systems, despite differences in predator type, hydrology, climatic region, ecological zone and level of in situ primary production.
This is in keeping with the general concept of the intricacies of the food web. When key components are taken out of the web, it starts to malfunction. In this case one of the consequences is a little more of a contribution to climate change.
Alzheimer’s Disease Cases in America Predicted to Triple By 2050
I study the effects of neurological disorders on language, and I’m simultaneously fascinated and frightened by the syndromes and disorders I see in the patients who participate in my lab’s studies. Without question, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most terrifying. It progressively destroys your memory and ability to communicate, before eventually killing you. While there are some treatments that can slow the progression of symptoms in some people, there still isn’t anything resembling an effective cure. While we’ve identified some genetic markers and protein abnormalities in the brains of people with AD, we still don’t really know what causes it. But, we do know that the number of people with Alzheimer’s in America is going to increase rapidly over the next 40 years, according to a new study published in Neurology.
Researchers at the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging in Chicago collected interview data from more than 10,000 adults over the age of 65, and screened a sample of them for AD. From these data, they figured that there are 5 million Americans with AD today, but that will swell to almost 15 million by 2050, nearly a threefold increase.
One of the reason for the projected increase in Alzheimers is the aging baby Boomer segment of the population. It is simply a case of such a large part of the population being in their senior years.
tangledwing 