Ratting out Sydney's cane toad menace

A state of origin match is being played out in Sydney's drains, but unlike the real thing it is the Queenslanders being massacred.

It has been discovered that a colony of cane toads who hitched a ride from the sunshine state are being eaten by the local rodents.

Cane toads were discovered some time ago in an industrial area of Taren Point, in Sydney's south.

Since then the local council, State Government and scientists have been working to eradicate them.

University of Sydney biologist Rick Shine, a passionate toad buster, says toads have been fitted with radio transmitters to monitor their behaviour.

Professor Shine says one of the "entertaining" things to emerge from the monitoring is how rats are munching away on the toads and living to tell the tale.

"The toads quite frequently use drains as cover and the drains contain rats, which we don't normally think of as our best friends," Professor Shine said.

"But rats evolved in the northern hemisphere, in the same place that toads did, and they're capable of dealing with the toad's poison.

"So one of our telemetered toads got massacred and eaten by a rat.

"Unlike a native predator, which a toad would be a fatal meal for, for a rat a toad's just a pretty nice breakfast.

"So we may have some of the old invaders helping get rid of some of the new invaders.

Professor Shine says they have also discovered a Sydney breeding ground for the pests, a pond of tadpoles.

He says it is the "Achilles heel" of the breeding cycle.

"It's a big step in controlling the breeding of the toad as one female can produce as many as 30,000 eggs," Professor Shine.

The tadpoles are euthanised.

He says there are hundreds of the toads in the Shire and hundreds more arrive every year by hopping on trucks carrying things like building materials and mulch from Queensland.

Professor Shine says because the toads are such effective stowaways they will keep on coming.

A toad was found in Launceston in Tasmania's north last week after apparently hitching a ride in a container at Christmas time.

There are several records of toad sightings in other areas in Sydney, but Taren Point seems to be their favourite home.

Source http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/20/3196478.htm?site=sydney

Telstra launches Elite mobile hotspots

Telstra has launched a new mobile Wi-Fi broadband device aimed at business customers who have multiple devices requiring wireless internet connection.

The Telstra Elite Mobile Wi-Fi will allow up to five Wi-Fi-enabled devices access to Telstra's Next G network, offering download speeds of up to 8Mbps.

Telstra's executive director of mobility products, Warwick Bray, said that the hotspots were ideal for customers who had lots of devices that needed internet connectivity.

"Our customers tell us they love the speed and reliability of Next G mobile broadband, but they've said they'd like an easier way to share it with a greater range of Wi-Fi-enabled devices including smartphones, tablets, cameras, laptops and portable games consoles," he said in a statement.

"The Telstra Elite Mobile Wi-Fi should ... prove popular with our business customers who increasingly use Wi-Fi-enabled devices such as tablets and cameras and require mobile connectivity to support fast file transfers and to work flexibly while away from the office," he added.

The device will be available from 12 April and costs $129 upfront with 5GB of data for regular prepaid mobile broadband customers, while business customers can sign up for a $29 per month plan with 1GB worth of data each month.

Source http://www.cnet.com.au/telstra-launches-elite-mobile-hotspots-339312742.htm