European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 10, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse A a a a a. A Rel the Crocodile is built for efficiently Hunting other animals and is one the most ferocious predators on Earth. Protesters fear research on crocodiles could result in next killer Bee species by James Brooke the new York times Ith the bang of a Gavel a judge near Osorio Brazil recently came Down with a verdict no More Crocodile sex. Filing an Appeal lawyers cited an expert witness who argued Quot single sex groups of adult Nile crocodiles exhibit unnatural and perverse moved by this Appeal a higher court judge suspended the ban in May ruling that 106 adult crocodiles living there could mate this Spring. Beyond providing fresh material for local comedians the Legal fight Over Crocodile sex in this Small town in Southern Brazil involves a serious environmental debate with worldwide implications should a predator species from one continent be transferred to another continent at the Core of this debate is a Small unmarked building surrounded by tight Security. Inside a darkened temperature controlled artificially humidified chamber a Row of incubators Rustle with 103 6-month-old Nile Crocodile hatchling the first of this african species bred commercially in the americas. Measuring Only 1 foot Long the hatchling Are to be raised to maturity at a new Crocodile ranch at Osorio. About 18 months from now when the crocodiles attain almost 4 feet in length they Are to be killed and their skins sold for Export. To ecologists the Transfer of Africa s largest and most violent crocodilian to South America has created a biological time bomb comparable to storing plutonium at a Busy train station. According to the ecologists Nightmare scenario crocodiles will eventually escape from the ranch which is Only 200 Yards from a major Inland waterway system. Larger than any crocodilian found in South America an adult Croc Dylus nilotic us can measure 20 feet Long and weigh 1 ton. Quot All the Crocodile farms we know of Are Leaky on the Long term,&Quot.william e. Magnusson an australian Crocodile specialist at the Institute for Amazon studies argued in a Telephone interview from manaus Brazil. Scientists fear that the Nile crocodiles Able to dominate local competitors with a few snaps of their jaws would aggressively colonize the wetlands of Central South America first the Pant anal River system and then the Amazon. Once in the Amazon the world s largest River system the Nile crocodiles would be enormously expensive to eradicate. Camouflaged by their dark Green color they kill dozens of people every year in Africa More than any other wild animal. Quot if Nile crocodiles were to escape there is a Strong probability that they would Breed rapidly in the wild and would spread not Only throughout Brazil but also to other countries in tropical South America As has happened with the african Bee Quot Richard Luxmoore of the world conservation monitoring Center in London wrote to the brazilian authorities to protest the hatchery. In 1957, bees imported from Africa escaped from a Breeding Experiment in Southern Brazil. Subsequently dubbed Quot killer bees Quot the species has killed 1,000 people during a 36-year flight through latin America said or. Mark l. Winston a professor of biological sciences at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. Three years ago the bees invaded Texas. They Are expected to enter Arizona this year and Southern California next year. In another controversy Over alien species brazilian environmentalists Are trying to tighten controls at hatcheries stocked with african walking Catfish a recent and Clandestine import. After several of the fish escaped from the hatcheries they proved to be aggressive predators in Brazil s lagoons and mangrove swamps. Quot having surveyed a Large number of Crocodile farms in countries All around the world i am aware of none that is completely secure Quot wrote Luxmoore who is head of the Center s habitat subject new Battery technology a boost for electric cars by Mark a. Stein los Angeles times it Arizona state University researchers have developed a rubbery conducting substance that May make it possible to Combine the Superior Energy storage of Lithium batteries with the convenience of dry cells a potentially important step toward mass producing practical electric cars. Key to the new concept which scientists said still May be years from the marketplace is a reversal of the ratio of the two main ingredients most often used in experimental electrolyte the chemical substance that conducts electricity inside the Battery. Rather than lightly Quot salting Quot some plastics to make a solid electrolyte that conducts poorly chemistry professor Charles Austen Angell and1 his colleagues say in a recent Issue of the journal nature that they tried adding a Little plastic to a vat of molten Lithium or aluminium salts. The resulting rubbery electrolyte stores Energy Well and releases it quickly they report private and government scientists Are aggressively studying these so called Lithium polymer cells because of their potential to hold More Energy in less space than conventional Lead acid batteries. Better batteries can make electric cars weigh less accelerate faster and go longer Between recharges thus making them More competitive with gasoline powered cars. Quot batteries Are the thing that give you the Range and Cost the most so you want them to be As Light compact and powerful As possible Quot said Richard Schweinberg of Southern California Edison. The Utility is part of the advanced Battery consortium which is spending $53 million on Battery research. Most is focused on Lithium polymer technology. News of the new Battery design is drawing Praise a and scepticism. Quot a Way has been opened to a new generation of Lithium batteries Quot said Malcolm Ingram of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. However some scientists in the United states criticized the electrolyte recipe cited by Angell and his colleagues As impractical. The article discusses electrolytes with Lithium chlorate or aluminium Chloride salts that readily absorb moisture from the atmosphere. This is a problem because the water they absorb can corrode other vital Battery components. A turning it All around a making a polymer in Satt instead of a Salt in polymer a is a Good idea a Clever approach Quot said one scientist a competitor in Lithium polymer research who agreed to speak Only if not named. Quot but this particular combination of salts in t going to do it Angell said that he and his colleagues Changle us and Edwardo Sanchez concede that Quot the salts we used in our demonstration Are probably not acceptable in commercial Quot but Quot he added Quot there Are a lot of other candidates that we had t tried at the time the article was submitted to the journal last year because they were difficult to handle or difficult to said a number of new electrolyte recipes have been tried some of which work better than those cited in nature he declined to be specific because his research is proprietary. Tuesday August 10, 1993 the stars and stripes 17
