European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 16, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Man and nature May eliminate by Paul Alexander the associated press alas those lovable symbols of Australia Are being killed off by loss of habitat dogs cars sexually transmitted disease and eucalyptus Trees that fight Back by producing Poison leaves. The Koala is our most popular National ambassador but it faces an Uncertain future said Deborah Tabard executive director of the australian Koala foundation in Syndey. Unless economists join conservationists and recognize the value of our wildlife by considering the environment the Only koalas left will be in souvenir  koalas have been threatened since the 1920s, when 3 million were shot for their pelts. They became extinct in South Australia state. Only rough estimates of the current population Are available because the pouched marsupials often wrongly called bears sleep about 19 hours a Day and roam mostly at night various guesses put the number Between 60,000 and 400,000, most of them in Southeast  Koala is designated As a rare and vulnerable species in new South Wales and appears to be holding its own Only in Victoria state. Over the next 10 years i think the Koala has a major problem Tabard said. They re extremely vulnerable to changes in their local environment and do not adapt  Many of the problems Stem from human encroachment since White settlement 80 percent of the koalas habitat has been destroyed Tabard said. That makes it hard for the slow moving animals to find enough food and Safe places to live away from deadly dogs and cars. Koalas Are finicky eaters relying almost exclusively on the leaves of about a dozen of the 650 eucalyptus species. The leaves Are hard to digest cardboard is easier and provide one of the least nutritious diets of any mammal. Even though they eat the equivalent of eight loaves of White bread a Day koalas cannot generate much Energy. Some of the Trees make it even tougher the government s Commonwealth scientific and Industrial research organization discovered recently. In an Effort to keep their leaves focus shrinking habitats and food supplies threaten the existence of the cute Koala. Eucalyptus Trees that grow in poor soil produce More toxins than Trees in Good soil said Adrienne Clarke head of the Agency. The situation can be likened to an evolutionary arms race she said. On one Side the Trees have made their leaves foul tasting and toxic so the koalas won t eat them while on the other the koalas have evolved Complex digestive systems to Deal with the poisons. In some areas where there is Good soil the koalas Are winning the War. In other areas where the soil is poor the Trees Are winning. The problem is that areas of Good soil Are not Only attractive to koalas they Are also favored by humans for other land  then there is chlamydia a sexually. Transmitted disease that affects humans and apparently is carried by most koalas. It is responsible for the main Koala diseases kidney and bladder infections infertility blindness and pneumonia. Chlamydia by itself does not seem to be a problem said Frank Carrick a zoologist who studied koalas in the wild for a year but it flares up when immunosuppression occurs when koalas Are  Tabard s foundation which raises Money for Koala research has 2,500 american members. An estimated 10 million people each year see the 50 or so  North american zoos. One of the foundation s projects is to provide maps based on satellite imaging to help developers avoid the Best Koala habitats. A australian boy scouts Are planting eucalyptus Trees to feed koalas. Science shorts attacking Boll Weevils a team of scientists from a Federal agricultural research Laboratory in Texas says that tiny Black wasps imported from Mexico May greatly reduce the damage to the Cotton crop caused by Boll Weevils. This approach would also reduce the use of pesticides. A spokesman for the agricultural research service in Weslaco Texas said the wasps wiped out 96 percent of Young Boll Weevils on one and two acre test plots without any help from pesticides. This allowed the plants to produce Between three and 14 times More Cotton than the Wasp has been More effective than other natural predators because it attacks the insect on the ground rather than on the Plant. It seeks out buds infested with Weevil larvae that fall to the ground. It then lays it own eggs inside the buds and when a Wasp hatches it eats the Boll Weevil larva before the pest can develop and make its Way Back to the Plant. Living Fossil found a botanist credits Luck and California s stubborn drought for the discovery of a previously unknown Plant a Shrub he describes As a living Fossil with a 48 million year ancestry. Dean Taylor and Glenn Clifton found the Shasta Snow Wreath a member of the Rose family with delicate White Flowers last year in a Forest near Shasta Lake. The Shrub s Only known living close relative is the rare Alabama Snow Wreath. The two found the Plant while crossing a Limestone outcropping that had been inaccessible before the drought caused Cedar Creek to drop. It took about a week for scientists to identify the Shrub As a new species. They were cautious because the Plant belongs to a subgroup that was not known to exist in Western North Amer Ca better stress gauge Nasa is seeking a Patent on a More accurate Way to measure stresses on a variety of products such As cars planes and nuclear reactors. Researchers use Strain gauges to do structural tests on Many new products. For 150 years such gauges have been connected to recording devices by a wiring system called the Wheatstone Bridge. But when the material being tested undergoes significant changes in temperature similar Thermal changes in the wires can alter the measurements. The new method uses a circuit called a constant current  it contains smaller Ais a often fewer wires and therefore produces More accurate Strain measurements according to Nasa. The method was developed by an Engineer at the National aeronautics and space administration s Arnes Dryden flight research facility at Edwards fab Calif. From wire reports tuesday february 16,1993 b the stars and stripes 17