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One of America’s most delicate ecosystems is invaded with swarms of giant, non-native Burmese pythons. They’re big. They screw up the ecosystem. And they’re hard to find. But researchers may have finally learned how to round ‘em up, thanks to radio and GPS.

The easily camouflaged, semi-aquatic Burmese python can easily hit 20 feet and 200 pounds, and they like to snack on endangered mammals dwelling in the Everglades—making them both hard-to-nab and a serious threat to the local ecosystem. They were first spotted in the region back in 1979.

In a study led by the U.S. Geological Survey, published last month in the journal Animal Biotelemetry, researchers explained how the use of tracking technology over many years has narrowed down the size of the huge snakes’ dwelling range in Florida’s Everglades National Park. It also better explains the animals’ movements and migration. This can help authorities neutralize this threat to the Everglades’ biodiversity.

This study started back in 2006 with 19 wild-caught adult pythons, which were implanted with radio transmitters or GPS devices. Sixteen were radio-tracked with VHF tags for three years, and the other three snakes were monitored with GPS tags for one year. The results determined where the pythons like to hang in the park (on tree islands and near roads, in an average range of around 14 square miles), and that they tend to move to wherever there’s surface water. Before this study, the predators’ movements and habitat ranges within the park were pretty unknown.

This multi-year effort was the largest and longest-running python-tracking study ever (both here and its native habitat of Southeast Asia). The National Park Service says that since 2002, only about 2,000 pythons have been removed from the park—“likely representing only a fraction of the total population.”

In 2013, the state kicked off the inaugural Python Challenge. It was a snake-snatching contest that awarded regular folks thousands of dollars to comb through the Everglades, wrangling and exterminating Burmese pythons. (There’s a second installment set for 2016.) Hopefully this new study can better put the task in tech’s hands.

[USGS via WashPo]

via Gizmodo
Pythons Take Over Florida, Are Busted By GPS

As unnerving as it is to hear, air traffic control has always been pretty piecemeal. Relying on a combination of instrumentation—namely, radar, radios, and GPS—as well as good old fashioned eyeballs, pilots do a pretty good job navigating the sky. But they’re about to get a lot better with a new satellite-based system.

Appropriately named NextGen, the new system being deployed widely this year by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) promises to improve every single air traveller’s experience. The key is constant connectivity to precise satellite technology that gives all aircraft and controllers in flight towers access to real-time-data from the time the plane leaves the gate until it arrives at its destination. This means weather problems are more easily spotted and avoided—which is a huge deal since weather causes 70 percent of all delays. Beyond that, the entire air traffic control system is becoming more automated and modernized. The FAA already has a list of NextGen success stories, too.

The NextGen system will get even better as more planes use it, too. “All you need is one aircraft to land and the benefits begin,” said the FAA’s Warren Strickland in a statement. “With connections, the benefits are exponential.” Heck, even an incremental benefit would be nice at this point!

via Gizmodo
Thank God the FAA Is Switching to Satellites for Air Traffic Control