Record-breaking 128lb Python that measures 18ft and 8in long is captured and killed in Florida
The biggest ever Python snake found in Florida, measuring 18 feet and 8 inches long, has been captured and killed.
The 128lb giant female reptile broke the previous record by over a foot.
The Burmese Python, an invasive species to the Florida Everglades, was found and killed by Jason Leon in a rural area southeast of Miami.
He managed to snare the snake after seeing part of its body sticking out the undergrowth.
With the help of a friend he killed the snake with a knife. According to University of Florida scientists, the snake was not carrying eggs.
Florida Wildlife officials later told him it was the biggest ever recorded in the state. The previous longest was 17ft and seven inches.
'We were riding and I saw something poking out on the side of the road. At first I didn't know what it was,' said Veronica Larios, who accompanied Leon to the Everglades.
In a video recorded by another friend Blake Jordan Leon can be seen grabbing the snake by it's neck.
Larios hands Leon a knife and helps him move the snake's body as it tried to coil around her friend.
Leon said: 'For about 10 minutes, he was wrapping around my legs, around my arms. I was switching arms, and finally. We finally pulled him apart, stretched him out, and took a knife and cut his head.'
'I knew that it was a big snake and I've never seen it in the wild. I knew it didn't belong there. I knew they had to be removed so I grabbed it.'
The snake was later given to the University of Florida's Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center for a necropsy.
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Committee, recently sanctioned a hunt to try and rid the Everglades of the pythons.
A total of 63 pythons were captured as 1,600 people took part in the month long hunt with the longest 14ft 3in.
The Pythons are killing other small animals in the one million acre Everglades.
They are also thought to be breeding an at alarming rate with the first reptiles released into the Everglades thought to have been pets that outgrew their containers. - Daily Mail
Invasive Pythons in the United States: Ecology of an Introduced Predator (Wormsloe Foundation Series)
Python Hunters: Season Three - (2 Discs)
Snake in the Grass: An Everglades Invasion
**********
Living To 150 May Soon Be A Reality
The oldest man alive today is 115-years-old. But will Jiroemon Kimura be alive at the age of 150? Probably not, but Dr. Aubrey de Grey believes that the first person capable of living to 150 is already alive.
De Grey believes that advances in technology and medicine will soon enable people to live long past 100-years-old.
De Grey said: “I’ve always been fastidious in only saying that the first such person is PROBABLY alive today. I would estimate the chance at 90%, though that could fall as low as 70% if funding for the relevant research in the coming decade or two is not sharply increased.”
De Grey likened the situation to an old car, saying that if you take care of a car it will run for a very long time. The same is true with the human body.
De Grey said: “It’s always been a mystery to me why this isn’t totally obvious to everyone. Do we let cars fall apart when they get old? – yes in general, but not if we really want them not to – that’s why we have 50 year old VW Beetles driving around, and even vintage cars. It’s bizarre that people don’t see that the exact same thing is true of the machine we call the human body, just that that machine is a lot more complicated so the development of sufficiently comprehensive preventative maintenance is a lot more challenging.”
De Grey said that he has “no data” to confirm his prediction but that doesn’t mean that living to 150 isn’t possible.
A recent study in Science claims that an anti-aging found in red wine could help people to live to 150-years-old. Professor David Sinclair, from UNSW Medicine, said that there are more than 117 anti-aging drugs, which would also fight diabetes, cancer, and Alzheimer’s, use an enzyme called SIRT1. The anti-aging drugs could be on the shelf in the next five years.
Sinclair said: “Ultimately, these drugs would treat one disease, but unlike drugs of today, they would prevent 20 others … In effect, they would slow ageing.” - Inquistr
**********
Sinkhole or forgotten basement
Officials are trying to determine what caused the floor of a northern New Jersey warehouse to open up, swallowing a forklift and the man who was running it.
Authorities say Danny Rodriguez of Bronx, N.Y., managed to escape serious injury as his forklift sank into the 6- to 10-foot deep hole Monday in the East Rutherford warehouse rented by AM Express Freight.
The hole filled with cooking oil and soy sauce that was stored in the warehouse.
The owner's property manager, Bruce Jordan, told The Record newspaper (http://bit.ly/16KL9yz ) it appeared the reinforced concrete slab foundation had given way over a long-forgotten basement under the building.
**********
Strange Marks
Netherlands: Woke up last sunday with these marks on my left shoulder.
I just want to know if someone else maybe had the same ones.
It's like a hexagon shape with one dot seeming out of place.
Can't remember resting heavy or pointy materials on my shoulder, but I'm still searching for something normal that explains these dots.
No pain no strange things happening further.
Today is the first tuesday after, dots slowly disappear. - MUFON CMS
**********
Lunar real estate sales legit
If someone tried to sell me the moon, I would dismiss them as con artists. So I was pretty surprised to learn about Denis Hope, a 65-year-old man from Gardnerville, Nevada, who runs a legit business selling land plots on the Moon, Mars, Venus, Io and Mercury. Of course, there’s no legal backing to all this, but there’s nobody stopping him either. As long as he’s able to make people smile, he says he can do anything he wants. He’s been in business since 1980.
Hope is a former-ventriloquist, now in the business of space real-estate. Some people view his work as the selling of ‘novelty items’ such as pet rocks and certificates. Others argue that he’s taking forth the age-old American tradition of land speculators selling plots of useless land. Hope admits that there are several others selling property in outer space, but the difference is that those people are criminal in their intent. He considers himself the legit owner of the Moon, so what he’s doing is all right. How come he is so confident, you ask? Well, he says this is as real as any other property you can buy on Earth, and that’s because he filed a declaration with the United Nations. Otherwise, Hope says he wouldn’t be selling at all. - odditycentral.com