- [Announcer] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

[piano intro] - Hi, there, I'm Frank Graff.

Visit a 60-year-old weather station far off the North Carolina coast, the science of kudzu, and the microclimates on a North Carolina landmark.

We're talking the science of iconic North Carolina next on "Sci NC."

[adventurous music] - [Presenter] Funding for "Sci NC" is provided by the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

[adventurous music] ♪ - Hi again, and welcome to "Sci NC."

I know you've seen the pictures.

The Frying Pan Shoals Light Tower gains national attention when there's a hurricane that's threatening the coast.

It is a marvel of engineering.

Was built 60 years ago.

The Coast Guard abandoned it 20 years ago, and now, a private homeowner, landowner, is repairing it, but as producer Brooks Bennett explains, throughout the entire time, the light station has been a weather station 28 miles out to sea.

[ethereal music] - You know, we look at the ocean all the time.

We see it from the beaches.

We may get on a surfboard and go out, you know, a couple hundred feet, but it's one thing to be on the ocean and see the beauty of what's out here.

It's another thing to be able to say there's no dirt for 30 miles.

[ethereal music] I daresay in one month, more people will see Everest than may ever come out to the Frying Pan.

[ethereal music] We're off the grid, 100% off any grid.

Matter of fact, we are outside of America by about six miles, technically, so we are in international waters.

This is about as remote as you can get, and honestly, it can be as rugged as you would ever imagine.

[wind whistling] [wind whooshing] You get to see phenomenon that I don't know how you would capture it otherwise.

[wind whooshing] [plastic crinkling] We've been through many hurricanes.

We get to see what it's like to be in 110-mile-an-hour winds, and you saw how crazy that was.

[ethereal music] [wind whooshing] Now, we're experimenting with actually having livestreams of what's going on right here because I want you to be able to watch this, look on your phone, your smart device, and feel like you are right there next to a hurricane with the flag fluttering in the wind on one of the major channels, for example.

[equipment scraping] I think I felt the earth move a little bit on that one.

Or with the underwater camera with the sharks cruising by.

[water sloshing] [equipment crackling] [gentle music] Or you're watching a ray batting itself across the sea floor, so if you are stuck on shore, you can always have a viewpoint into some of the habits of the creatures in the ocean, whether or not they're sharks or other fish that have been tagged.

[gentle music] Knowledge is power, and all those different ways of reaching people and letting them see what we have is a way for them to better understand and be part of what we're doing.

This is about making a future for people that can learn about our oceans, experience them themselves, and educate people about how to take care of this world that we live in.

So obviously, you know, our goal is to capture these sharks on camera [equipment clinking] and see what they're doing, just to help educate us about whether or not A, they fish during the day, [gentle music] or if they're just opportunistic at night.

This is a transient area for a lotta sharks.

Great whites will go cruising by here, like Mary Lee, the great white.

We have some instrumentation down on the bottom that will pick up their pings.

I am really curious to see what is on this line.

[gentle music] People ask me why did I buy the tower?

Providing a research station that was truthfully designed as a home gives people the ability to come out in a stable platform that we're restoring so they can have a place to stay, have communications, do their work, and then safely get back to shore by helicopter.

[gentle music] Originally, Frying Pan Tower was for the safety of the mariners that were going out here.

The tower was actually the end result of several hundred years of people knowing about the shoals and trying to avoid them, and in this case, the Frying Pan Shoals goes about 35 miles out into the ocean and has caused thousands of shipwrecks over the years.

[gentle music] We have stairs that will take us all the way up to where the original light was to keep the ships off the shoals.

[feet thudding] [flooring rattling] Up on the very top of the tower up here, [footsteps tapping] the anemometer gets its direction and the wind speed, and I guess I'm about 136 feet up, give or take a foot.

The reason you wanna be up here for things like the anemometer is because it's clear air.

When the wind's blowing up here, it's not obstructed by anything, and in calm weather like this, it's obviously no big deal, but during hurricanes, it really matters.

Also, from this viewpoint, we can see 10 or 15 miles in all directions.

Over the years, we've been able to participate in several rescues, and because of that, when we're not here, we've donated the use of the Axis camera up here for the Coast Guard guys to be able to log on, zoom in, and look at any vessels in distress.

When the tower was built, it was built with a 50-year lifespan estimated, and when they were done with it, they were looking for a way to get rid of it.

They were planning originally on just decapitating it and dropping the top down in the ocean, creating a natural barrier reef area, but they were stopped by the local fishermen, who decided that they did not want their icon out in the ocean to be destroyed.

So many boaters as they're going past know that this represents basically the outreaches of America out here, with us saying, "Yes, we will help you if we possibly can," and obviously, it struck a chord in me.

[upbeat music] - [Noah] Frying Pan Tower, this is Noah Schmidt by serial channel 1-6.

- Copy on six.

This is Richard on the tower.

- [Noah] Right now, we're headed in ranks to the tower.

There is a shipwreck in this area that we're gonna try and map tonight and potentially dive on with the scuba divers tomorrow, and what were doing here is evaluating and assessing how to place artificial reefs in the future so that it can officially thrive and help fishing communities as well as the ecosystems in the area.

[radio popping] [equipment clattering] - We should go out there and take a look-see.

[upbeat music] [equipment hissing] [bubbles gurgling] [air hissing] As a citizen scientist, we can help other people in ways that we never even realized.

The tower being out here, you have to keep wrapped into your mind how is this benefiting others?

How are we providing information to others: researchers, marine biologists, weather and climate people, scientists from all around the world?

Well, if I can provide information, if I can do viewpoints into things, then the people that have the experience and the knowledge to really make some brilliant deductions can see this information and help make it safer for the people over on shore when a hurricane comes.

Keeping people safe, that's a big part of being out here.

- [Key] Frying Pan Tower, this is Key Petters on 1-3.

[radio popping] - [Richard] This is Richard on the tower.

- [Key] How you doing, Richard on the tower?

What can I do for you?

[radio clicking] - [Richard] Sir, we got a boat that's just off to our southeast by our small way buoy.

They are having some motor problems.

- Frying Pan Tower, it's a safe haven for mariners.

Every time I show up to the tower, I connect to the Wi-Fi, and I call my dad, and I'm like, "Hey, man, I'm at the tower."

He can check me on the live camera.

There's always some sort of communication and safety net with that.

We're 50 miles away from our inlet.

It's a dangerous game to be out that far, and we can act accordingly to prevent that danger.

- It's a very tactical operation, and just having the tower out there, functional, gives us another point of radio contact, and no two days are ever the same, and it's called Cape Fear for a reason.

- [Stephanus] Us as free divers, we're literally just moving left and right and back and forth around the tower and going to specific rocks and reefs and areas that we hunt certain fish species and find lobster.

It's unreal.

- [EJ] Yeah, it takes a special someone to wanna share that experience with other people.

- [Stephanus] People should visit so that they can contribute to keeping it above water.

We're blessed to have it.

- Yeah, it's very rich and abundant right here in our backyard, and it's a very special place, one of a kind.

[relaxed guitar music] - It's really an honor just to be out here and work on this.

Knowing what it was and what it meant, yeah, it's a lotta work.

Yeah, it's a labor of love, but it's also a tremendous honor just to have the chance to do something like this.

Fads come and go, and the tower, for it to actually survive another decade, people have to not just go, "Oh, that's cool," they need to say, "What can I do to help?"

You wanna help?

Tell everyone.

That is the way to take and just accelerate what we're doing 'cause if we keep this place up and going before it falls down, that next generation takes it and continues to increase their knowledge and understanding about this world, of which we only have one to live in.

We better get it done.

[relaxed guitar music] ♪ - From the blue ocean to green plants, kudzu is also iconic for all the wrong reasons.

It's been called the vine that ate the South, but as science producer Rossie Izlar explains, maybe it's not all that bad.

[mysterious music] - Here in the South, we've learned to hate kudzu.

This vine covers everything in its path with a luscious green death mat.

Kudzu is the poster child for invasive species in the South, and it's a classic tale of human hubris.

We deliberately planted it, and it got outta control, but now that it's here, should we just start using it?

[cheerful music] [Rossie sniffing] - It's rooty.

- Pretty good, yeah, [sniffs] but kinda sweet.

That's what Justin and Lauren think we should do.

They make kudzu hot chocolate.

They weave kudzu cloth from the vines.

They process starch from the roots.

They're huge kudzu fans, and they want us to love it too.

- You know, I look at this kudzu patch.

That to me is a bank of resources going into the future.

- Kudzu's story in the United States began in 1876 at the first American-hosted World Fair in Philadelphia, the same World Fair that introduced Americans to ketchup and the telephone.

Plant catalogs started selling kudzu, calling it, "The most remarkable hardy climbing vine that should be planted by everyone desiring dense shade," but it might not have become such a monster if it wasn't for the federal government.

In the 1930s, agriculture in the South was in trouble.

Intensive tobacco and cotton farming had depleted nutrients in the topsoil, and farmers started harvesting timber for extra cash, which further depleted the soil by causing erosion.

Farmers needed something to anchor the soil, and to the federal government, kudzu seemed like a good solution.

It's extensive root system and nitrogen-fixing properties would heal the soil and also feed cattle with its nutritious leaves, so the Soil Conservation Service paid farmers to plant their land with kudzu, eventually handing out 84 million seedlings, but by the 1950s, farmers realized they couldn't easily make money on kudzu, and most of it was plowed under or eaten by livestock.

[cow mooing] The only place where kudzu really thrived was along highways, where it had easy access to sunlight, and it quickly dominated.

So instead of being the solution to our erosion problems, kudzu became an uncontrollable weed, putting pressure on a number of rare species found only in the South.

[air whooshing] [upbeat music] But Lauren and Justin want us to change our minds about kudzu, so we're visiting them in Sylva, North Carolina, to harvest some.

[footsteps rustling] [upbeat music] So Justin, here we are in this beautiful kudzu patch as far as the eye can see.

What's the plan?

- So we're gonna see if we can find some kudzu roots.

I suspect we will.

Just in this area, there's probably maybe 100 kudzu roots.

[kudzu crunching] - Some cutting.

- Can you reach that one there?

- Yeah.

[root snapping] - Yeah!

- So satisfying, and some digging.

[equipment tapping] We pulled out a kudzu root.

Ooh, what do we got?

- This one.

- That is huge!

- Wow!

- Ta-da!

- One of the really amazing things that I like to share with people that really made me start to rethink kudzu was that in the places where it comes from, just about every single part of the plant is used in a really big way, not just like little craft items, but like as a staple food, and a big part of traditional Chinese medicine, they use hundreds and hundreds of herbs.

Kudzu's one of the top 20.

- So it's an untapped resource that we just need to change our mindsets about.

- I think so.

Change our mindsets is one, and then learn kudzu culture, which is how to work with the plant, how to harvest it, when to harvest it, what to harvest, how to use it, how to appreciate it, how to make art and beauty with it.

[relaxing music] - So we've got our kudzu root from the field, and we've cleaned it, and then what happens?

- Then we chop it.

[knife tapping] We'll shred it, [motor whirring] and then we will pulverize it so that the starch and juice starts to separate, and then we'll go through a rinsing and settling process to then get the final starch.

- [Justin] The starch is really quite magical stuff.

- It's used as a thickening agent for sauces, and you can make this really jelly kind of noodle with it.

Jams or jellies and desserts, pastries and breads.

It's an existing abundant crop, and we have this bias associated with it that to see the value in it, you have to overcome that bias, and to do that, you have to learn what other people have done and what people are still doing today in areas of the world where the plant is native.

- You know where this is going, right?

If we all start eating kudzu, [Justin laughing] then maybe we could keep it in check?

Well, we talked to Owen Carson, the president of the Invasive Plant Council, and he sorta threw cold water in our faces.

Not really, but kinda.

- It's ultimately not a problem that we can eat our way out of.

It's a really deep-rooted issue, pun definitely intended.

In Asia, where it originates, there are natural controls there that work against kudzu, so there are other plants that suppress its growth.

There are fungi and pests and pathogens.

They're all native to that part of the world, and so one of the biggest issues is when you remove a plant from its native ecosystem and put it in a place that has very similar climate, similar resources, but none of those biocontrols, it's gonna go crazy.

- A 2005 study found that invasive plants and animals cost the US $120 billion in damages every year.

They outcompete native plants for resources, spread diseases, and are the leading cause of animal extinction and population decline.

Kudzu itself isn't even the worst of our invasive species.

We think of kudzu first because it's what we see along the highway, but if you look deeper into forested lands in the South, you'll find things like Asian privet, which covers 3.2 million acres, an area roughly the size of Connecticut, or take Oriental bittersweet in the Appalachian Mountains.

- It pulls down mature forest.

It creates these vine environments called lianas that are suppressive to biodiversity.

The food that bittersweet offers to native birds is of poorer quality than those of native fruits, and you have all sorts of disruptors extending out into the ecosystem from a plant like that.

- So if we can't eat our way outta this problem, what should we do about it?

Well, hey, here's an idea: don't plant these plants.

Thankfully, you can't buy kudzu at a greenhouse anymore, but people still ask the folks at Kudzu Culture if they have any seedlings.

- We think kudzu's a great plant.

We love everything about it, but there's already plenty of kudzu.

- But there are hundreds of invasive plants that you can still buy from a greenhouse, like privet.

[utensil scraping] In the meantime, yes, let's drink the kudzu Kool-Aid, or in this case, kudzu hot chocolate.

Seems like eating the plant that sort of ate the South is good karmic justice.

- Now to a critter that's iconic, well, to almost everywhere, but what you call it depends on where you're from.

[cheerful music] Meet the woodchuck, otherwise known as the groundhog.

- So it depends on where you live.

Woodchuck and groundhog are two different names for the same species, and the species is Marmota monax.

- [Frank] And Dr. Brett Woods loves groundhogs, or woodchucks.

- Don't just say that, oh, they're cute.

They are very cute.

[laughs] They are, I mean, as animals go, they're practically teddy bears walking around, doing cool things, yeah.

[laughs] - [Frank] And by the way, woodchucks, or groundhogs, are pretty well known.

There's that pseudo-holiday centered on groundhog shadows and weather forecasting.

There's that movie centered around that weather forecasting holiday.

There's also a rhyme.

- How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?

- If a woodchuck.

- Could chuck wood.

- [Frank] And a commercial about that rhyme.

[motor rumbling] - Hey, you dang woodchucks!

Quit chucking my wood!

[cheerful music] - [Frank] But back to the science of what makes marmots cool.

- They have almost two different types of physiologies.

They have their physiology that they have during the summer.

They have the physiology that they have during the winter, their hibernation.

So it's almost like two animals in one.

- [Frank] And those different physiologies are all because marmots hibernate.

- [Dr. Woods] Their body temperature drops.

Their metabolic rate drops.

Their breathing slows down.

It could be as low as couple of breaths per minute.

- [Frank] We're not talking hibernation like a bear, which is essentially a deep sleep.

Marmots go underground and spend the winter in what's really a state of suspended animation.

- And so imagine that you're a human, and you hibernate, and you're gonna go for, say, six months without eating, drinking, and you're essentially going to be maybe in your bed for that entire time, and you go in at 200 pounds, and at the end of that six months, you come out 100 pounds.

- [Laylah] She has a lot of coccidian parasites that are in the protozoan stage right now.

- [Frank] Dr. Woods and his students at High Point University believe understanding how marmots survive hibernation could provide huge benefits for human health.

- Before they enter hibernation in the winter months, during the summer and spring, they feed, they gain weight, but then they're able to expel those parasites before they go into the cycle.

- [Frank] Blood and fecal samples are providing insights.

- [Laylah] So what my job was during the summer was to figure out, well, what types of parasites could be in these groundhogs before they enter the hibernation period?

- [Frank] There's also the question of marmot blood.

- We're thinking about how they can cool their body temperatures to almost freezing temperatures, and they can turn on their bodies like that, and they can reheat their body, and the blood is fine.

So we would hope to be able to mirror that in the future with human blood.

If we could maybe figure out how to refrigerate human blood, we could extend the shelf life.

- So let me run through why marmots are great.

So we've established that they are cute animals.

A marmot can double or in some cases, especially with the young, triple its mass in a couple months.

It can lose half of its mass or more than half its mass in hibernation, and they'll do that every year.

Can you imagine if a human did that on a regular basis?

And so what would normally go wrong?

Well, blood would clot because it's not moving very much.

When you have that much fat, when you have that much sugar in your system, you could damage tissue.

I daresay a fair number of people would probably die if they were forced to do something like that, so it seems as if they have all of these issues and solutions for them, and so what does the marmot do that protects it from these things that we know can be very damaging to our tissues?

- There aren't many locations more iconic to North Carolina than Grandfather Mountain.

It is a unique place ecologically, and one reason is because of the microclimates on the mountain.

NC Culture Kids explains.

[wind rumbling] [relaxed music] [footsteps tapping] [wood creaking] - Hey, everybody, Emily here at Grandfather Mountain State Park to learn about why this mountain is so unique with its high elevation and weather.

[air whooshing] Hey, Ranger Andy.

How's it going?

- Pretty good.

How are you?

- I'm good.

So tell me, what makes this mountain so special?

- Well, as you can see, you know, right now, we're in the fog here, so with an elevation of 5,900-plus feet, we really have a lot of rare and endangered species that call this mountain home.

Part of that is because of the high elevation in contrast to the temperatures that we have up here.

It's not uncommon for our temperatures to be 10 to 20 degrees difference than at the base of the mountain, so with the weather that we have, the rugged, steep part of this mountain, it really just creates that perfect habitat and ecosystem for the special rare and endangered plants and animals that we have here.

- So it's much cooler up here is what you're saying.

- Yes, the 10 to 20-degrees difference definitely helps these species to be able to survive at the higher elevations, but we also have abiotic factors, or nonliving factors, that play into it as well, which would be soil, the wind, the amount of moisture or rain that it gets.

This area is pretty much what we would call different microclimates pieced all together to form those 16 ecosystems.

- Wow, Andy, this is astonishing.

I feel like I'm inside a cloud, and I feel like I could eat the cloud.

- You have your choice.

It's a buffet here.

- [laughing] Okay.

Let me try, ah.

- [Andy] How does it taste?

- Tastes pretty cloudy.

- [Announcer] Are you ready for dessert, then, to see those ecosystems?

- Yeah, let's check 'em out.

- All right.

[air whooshing] - Andy, it looks like the wind has affected the way that these trees look.

Is that right?

- That's correct, so this would be an example of a microclimate.

As you can see, the wind would basically funnel its way up this rock face.

It hits the trees, and all of the leaves and the needles are on the other side of the tree.

So the wind just basically pushes so hard through here that everything grows on that side.

It's very wind driven.

- Wow, that's really cool.

[air whooshing] [footsteps crunching] [air whooshing] [footsteps crunching] - So Emily, here, we are in a spruce fir ecosystem.

- Wow, this place is absolutely incredible and like nothing that I've ever seen before.

Is it unique to this area?

- Correct, this is unique, and you probably won't see it at any other places because naturally, spruce fir grow at an elevation of 5,000 feet or higher in cool climates, so we are fortunate to have one here at Grandfather, and as you can see, it's very unique.

Some other ecosystems that we have lower on the mountain would be an acidic cove, which would be a lot of greenbrier, rhododendron, really thick, dense vegetation, and rich cove, which is the exact opposite.

It'll have a lot of wildflowers, open areas with ferns, and different type of lush plants growing in it.

We really have a variety of ecosystems based on the high elevation and weather here at Grandfather Mountain State Park.

- That's really cool.

[air whooshing] Well, Andy, this place is so special and so wonderful, I'm wondering how I can help protect these unique ecosystems here?

- One of the best ways is to always stay on trail.

Anytime you step off trail, you're really endangering that ecosystem.

Spreading the word to others not to do that as well, just to not go off-trail, and then just be involved with the park, any park that you're around.

You can always make a difference.

- That's good to know.

I will definitely stick to the trails.

Well, thank you so much, Andy, for showing me around and showing me how weather and high elevation affect these really unique ecosystems.

- Oh, we're glad to have you.

Come back anytime.

[air whooshing] - And that's it for "Sci NC" for this week.

Be sure to check us out online.

I'm Frank Graff.

Thanks for watching.

[adventurous music] ♪ - [Presenter] Funding for "Sci NC" is provided by the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

[adventurous music] ♪