During the research, a team led by Dr Hamish Campbell, from the University of Queensland, captured 20 crocodiles living in the NorthKennedy tidal river in Queensland, northern Australia, and tagged them with satellite transmitters.
In reply to a question from the SDLP's Mark Durkan on the upgrading of the railway line to the north west, Mr Kennedy said Translink hoped to appoint a contractor in March.
"One of the ways these discs could be reused is as a radiation shield because there's a lot of plastic packaging in the trash, " Mary Hummerick, a Qinetiq North America microbiologist at Kennedy Space Center in Florida working on the project, said in a statement.