One Feisty Fish

T6, E3: (1/25/2011) With its vibrant zebra stripes and needle sharp spines filled with venom, the lionfish looks like something out of a science fiction movie. Averaging only 12 inches long, this menacing interloper from half-way around the globe is taking over -- eating everything in sight. Its voracious appetite could spell disaster for the western Atlantic’s delicate eco-system and its commercial fishing industry – and a new effort to reduce their numbers by making them the new “it” delicacy isn’t happening fast enough. Also, Muhammad Yunus, a man who became famous as a "banker to the poor" in the third world -- and won a Nobel Prize in the process -- has launched a program in America to give the poor access to small, affordable loans. These microloans have been hailed as a key to ending poverty and the microcredit model has been imitated by organizations all over the world. But new studies have raised doubts and a recent crisis in India has shown that credit --even microcredit -- can be dangerous.