[upbeat music] [upbeat music] - Hi there.

I'm Frank Graff.

Have you ever wondered what it's like to fly through a museum?

You'll see.

Can living shorelines protect the toast from climate change?

And North Carolina's commercial fishermen are testing a new way to fish.

The hope is that it'll catch fish and protect sharks.

It's all coming up on "Sci NC."

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- [Announcer 2] Additional funding for the "Sci NC" series is provided by GSK.

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

All right, be honest.

Who doesn't love sharks?

They're beautiful.

Yeah, a little scary, but they are important for the ecosystem.

Well, okay, commercial fishermen don't always love sharks.

Sharks are ruin nets.

Sharks steel prized catch like grouper.

Science producer Rossie Islar, shows us a device being tested that could keep sharks away from fishing gear.

- [Rossie] It's 5:00 AM off the coast of Manteo, and we're on fishermen Charlie Locke's boat with researcher, Sara Mirabilio, and we're about to do some science.

- [Sara] Flashing pattern lets me know that this is the test one versus the controls only blink once before the light goes on.

- [Rossie] Sara is testing out a device that could protect sharks and keep fishermen happy.

But to do that, we need to find sharks, which shouldn't be too hard because North Carolina's sounds, estuaries, and coasts are prime shark habitat.

Cool and warm waters meet along the Outer Banks, and many shark species migrate through or return yearly to have their pups.

We got black tip sharks, we got sandbar sharks, and we got sand tiger sharks.

We even have great white sharks.

Although sharks species have declined worldwide because of over fishing, regulation in the eighties and nineties has led to a population uptick in some species.

- I get calls a lot about shark attacks and swimming, and is it safe to swim.

Well, more vacationers, that trend's going up.

Sharks recovering, that goes up.

So it's just probability.

So now you have more sharks out in the wild, which is a good thing, right?

It means our conservation measures are doing what they're supposed to do, but also means that now you have more interactions with fishing gear, and nobody wants a shark on a hook.

It often means that the either took your bait away off that hook, so now you're not going to catch something that you wanted to catch, or they're eating your prize catch that was on that hook.

- Along the beach, we use a really light net in the spring for Spanish mackerel, and we get sharks in our gear, and they just, you know.

Even though they're alive, and we're not targeting them, they're trying to eat the fish out of our net, and they just wind up tearing up your net, you know, basically, and it's a $1,500 net sometimes brand new.

You put it in the water, and I've had nets destroyed the first time I ever put it in the water.

- On top of that, getting stuck in a net or a hook can injure and kill sharks unintentionally.

- [Sara] Bycatch is actually the number one threat to sharks globally.

It's a lose lose for everybody.

It's a lose lose for the fishermen who wants the prize catch, and it's a lose lose in that we could kill sharks unintentionally that we don't want to kill.

- [Rossie] That's where the device comes in.

You attach it to a fishing hook, and it admits an electric pulse.

That's important because sharks can sense electric fields.

It's how they hunt and avoid predators at close range.

So the theory is if this device pulses electricity in random patterns, it creates a small protective bubble around the hook that could make sharks keep their distance.

Here's how it looks in a lab setting.

The sharks steer clear.

- [Sara] We're trying to use biology, the differences in biology to deter them from a baited hook.

I equate it to a dog fence, an underground invisible fence for a dog.

- [Rossie] But now it's time to test it in the ocean.

Charlie runs a long line with each hook bearing a single device.

Half the devices are turned on and half are turned off.

Bonus, the devices emit a light, which helps attract the fish that fishermen are targeting.

- We try to have a twofer, basically, again to say, Hey, we're not asking you to put something else on your line.

We realize you already put so much conservation gear on your boat.

This would be to fill a need you already have.

- [Rossie] As we reel in the hooks, Sara is collecting data on how many sharks end up on hooks with the device turned off.

That way she'll have an idea of how well the devices worked.

- [Charlie] All right, we're gonna ease him up here.

I saw a flash.

- [Rossie] All the sharks we caught today ended up on hooks without the electrical pulse.

Charlie sells them to a local fishmonger at the end of the day so they don't go to waste.

Over the course of the study, hooks with a device turned on deterred sharks by more than 50%.

- [Sara] The results have been surprisingly positive.

- [Rossie] Sara is publishing her results, and the next step is figuring out how to scale up production to make a viable product.

- [Sara] Yes, they're very much a beta version.

- [Rossie] For fishermen, a device like this could be a game changer.

It would allow them access to places they aren't allowed to fish without accidentally killing sharks we're trying to protect.

- [Charlie] It's a tool in the toolbox of keeping fishermen fishing for species they can retain but not harvest the sharks that they don't want us to catch.

[upbeat music] - [Announcer] Hey, parents, teachers, and homeschoolers.

Looking for lesson plans?

You'll find free interactive ones about all types of science covered by Sci NC online.

- A huge wall or a bulkhead used to be thought of as the only way to protect the shoreline, but in a warming climate with bigger storms and rising seas, researchers are looking at living shorelines as a better option.

This series is part of the Pulitzer Center's nationwide Connected Coastlines reporting initiative.

- [Narrator] Picture the North Carolina coast.

[birds cawing] Your first thought might be a sandy beach, but the bulk of North Carolina's shorelines are actually along estuaries.

It's a lattice patchwork of bays, sounds, and salt marshes.

These habitats are crucial for juvenile fish, oysters, and clams, and of course, the fishing industry, which brings in millions of dollars a year.

Estuaries are also home to many North Carolinians who want to be close to the water.

But like the sandy beaches iconic to North Carolina, shorelines along estuaries are feeling the pressure of sea level rise, which is eating up property all along the coast, and the communities that live there are trying to figure out how to save their property from an ever encroaching ocean.

Linda and Kurt Wargin have lived in Newport, North Carolina for close to 30 years.

- Being right on the water is just, it's a moving picture every day.

- [Narrator] But over the years, they've seen their property erode at a faster pace.

- We saw maybe at least 10 to 15 feet of loss for us.

Now, that's over 20, 25 years, but it was marching.

- [Lexia] Erosion is a natural process, but it's happening more and more frequently because we've had a lot more storms, a lot more frequency and intensity of storms.

As sea level rises, we are seeing higher water levels than we have in the past.

So we're seeing erosion along the entire length of the shorelines.

- [Narrator] In the past, the default solution for homeowners in the face of erosion is what's called coastal hardening, installing a bulkhead or a rock wall revetment.

That's basically a line of rocks dumped along the shore.

The designs vary, but the goal of these structures are the same: hold the line against the ocean.

And they often fail.

- We had a neighbor down here.

We'd only been here about three years when we had a big hurricane, and he had a wall, and it just, it came over the wall, and it took the whole wall out, and it took half of his yard out.

And so that just left a terrible memory in our minds.

- [Narrator] But that's not the only problem with these structures.

When you harden a shoreline with a bulkhead, it damages the ecosystem.

- [Lexia] The more that we harden our shorelines, we start losing our valuable estuarine habitats, our saltmarsh habitats, our fish habitat, our oyster habitats because when that wave energy comes from the sound and it hits a harden structure, that energy has nowhere to go.

So then it comes back with it, and in the process it takes away all of that habitat in front of a bulkhead, a seawall, or a rip-rap revetment.

- [Narrator] Shallow estuarine habitats are crucial for fish, crabs, and oysters, basically all the things we like to eat.

Without habitat, they won't survive.

- [Lexia] So they have no place to hide.

They have no place to eat.

So it really affects all of the organisms that are in that location.

- [Narrator] Across the country, coastal communities have been hardening their shorelines to protect against erosion for years.

Research shows that overall we've hardened 14% of our country's shores.

In urbanized areas like New York City, it's more like 50%.

But over the last few years, the North Carolina Coastal Federation and other groups have been promoting an alternative to hardening.

They're called living shorelines because they're made of oyster shells or other natural materials that can become habitat for ocean organisms.

- [Mary-Margaret] So a living shoreline is something that's very near shore, but offshore a little bit so that it attenuates the wave energy instead of deflecting it.

And it slows the wave energy down.

They perform much better during hurricanes because in a hurricane, the high water is going to be over top of the structure.

It's still going to slow some of the energy down, but it's not getting battered the way like a wall does.

It also, as the wave slows down over the top of the structure, the sediment drops out, and you can actually build the marsh and make the land more resilient on its own.

So you're allowing the coast to heal itself.

[bird cawing] - [Narrator] With help from the Coastal Federation, Linda and Kurt installed a living shoreline in 2017.

- And we raised our hands and said, what have we got to lose?

- It works.

- It works.

I mean, cause we've seen, even after the storm, there might've been half a dozen bags that got tumbled off.

Easy to pick them up and put them right back on top.

And that was it.

It stayed, and our dock was nearly destroyed.

- I love that the oysters grow on it, and then they clean the water too.

So it's like you get all the perks from it.

It's growing all by itself, and it's cleaning, and it's protecting.

- The more projects that we build, the more people see them.

Once we build one, the neighbors will come out, and they'll want one as well.

So we're seeing this domino effect of installation of living shorelines, which is going to help to protect our coast much better than hardened shorelines like bulkheads.

- [Narrator] Living shorelines are still rare in comparison to hardened shorelines, but the tides are shifting in North Carolina where residents have built 3000 square miles of living shorelines.

- [Lexia] We met with so many landowners that would talk about where the shoreline was generations ago, where it wasn't their childhood, and they're wanting their children and their grandchildren to still have a coastline, and so they're very invested in wanting to protect it and wanting to protect it in the most environmentally sound way possible.

- [Kurt] It's such a respite.

You know, we got a son in Charlotte, a daughter in Greenville, North Carolina, and a son in Raleigh, and they love this place.

This is a getaway.

Put things down, and just take your shoes off and go walk out in the water.

[upbeat music] [upbeat music] - [Announcer] Do you want to explore more cool science facts and beautiful images of North Carolina?

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- Now to the science involved in a different kind of farming, no tractors, no fertilizer.

"Sci NC" producer, Rossie Izlar, left the ocean for the farm for this story.

- [Rossie] If your only experience of mushrooms has been this situation, then that might explain why you think you don't like mushrooms.

Most people can't digest raw mushrooms easily because they're built from chitin, the same compound that lobster shells are made of.

I'm not trying to dump on button mushrooms, but there are thousands of varieties of edible mushrooms out there.

Depending on the type, they might be floral, meaty, crispy, tangy, woodsy, whatever marketing term tickles your fancy.

But to get those unique variety of mushrooms from the woods onto your plate requires three levels of expertise: foraging, cloning, and cooking.

Fortunately, these guys have all three.

- I'm Cathy.

- And I'm Ernie.

- [Cathy] And we're mushroom farmers.

- But first, a refresher on mushrooms.

They aren't plants.

They aren't animals.

They're a fungi, which are somewhere in between.

They don't get their energy from the sun like plants, but instead absorb nutrients from other organisms like rotting wood or insects.

Also, the thing we think of as a mushroom is only the fruiting body.

Beneath the surface is mycelium, a web of thread like filaments called hyphae.

They do all the work of ingesting nutrients and breaking down matter.

The mushroom itself only pops up to spread spores, the fungal version of seeds.

Another side note, technically, the largest known organism in the world is actually a mushroom.

It's made up of more than 2000 acres of genetically identical hyphae in Oregon.

Okay, back to foraging with Ernie and Cathy.

- [Cathy] Being at the foot of Pilot Mountain, the forest that we have on the slopes of the hills on our farm are pretty old, so we've got basically old-growth fungus in a way.

- [Ernie] If we could just sit out in the woods and forage all day, I'd be down with that.

- It's like hunting for seashells on the beach.

- [Ernie] You're just always sure.

If you go around that next big tree, you just know there's something on the other side of it or maybe just past that creek.

- [Cathy] Disclaimer, one should never put an unknown mushroom in one's mouth.

It's a good way to get sick.

- There's literally nothing on earth that, if you have to say I wonder what this is, that you ought to put it in your mouth, right?

- [Rossie] Most mushrooms that Ernie and Cathy find in the woods are mycorrhizal, meaning they grow in collaboration with trees.

Trees give the mushrooms sugars, and in exchange, the mushrooms transfer nutrients to the trees.

But tree loving mushrooms like chanterelles are tough to raise in captivity, so foraging season may be the only time you see them.

For the rest of the year, mushroom farmers rely on cloning, not foraging, for their livelihood.

So cloning a mushroom is literally what it sounds like.

In theory, anyone can take a little piece of mushroom, feed it nutrients, and eventually it will grow up to be an identical genetic copy of the parent mushroom.

But it's a little more complicated than that because in the process, you have to make sure that molds and bacteria don't grow alongside the fungus that you want.

- We're gonna be starting with filthy mushrooms that just came out of the woods.

We want to make sure that we're not going to be introducing contaminants onto the ager itself.

Eventually, it covers the surface of the ager.

So once it's grown out on the plate, we can basically cut little pieces of ager and use them to inoculate sterilized rye grain.

You can see that the mycelium is growing out.

So they're little clones of the exact same thing, and they are bombs that are ready to be dispersed into whatever we want the mycelium to grow in.

So it's like if you threw a bunch of feet and hands and arms and legs and into a bag and shook it up, and they connected together to form an individual.

- Creepy metaphor, but it works.

After cloning and letting the mycelium grow out, Ernie and Cathy add it to bags of sawdust packed with nutrients for the final stage of the process.

With the right amount of humidity and light the mycelium fruit into a mushroom.

The cool thing about cloning is that if you find a delicious tasting mushroom, you can cultivate that exact same mushroom and keep it for the future.

- [Ernie] Every wild mushroom you find, there's genetic diversity, there are going to be differences in flavor and nutrient profiles, and you might find something really cool that could be exceptional.

- We farm mushrooms because we like to eat mushrooms.

[stove igniting] [mushrooms sizzling] You want chanterelles or [indistinct]?

- You can do chanterelles.

I want to do pink oysters.

[Cathy sighing] - Okay.

So chanterelles are a firmer mushroom.

They've got that good, nutty, earthy flavor and a little bit fruity.

So when you smell them, they smell a bit of apricots, and you get a little bit of that flavor when you eat them.

Cook them at least a few minutes.

They'll release some water, and then cook it until most of that water absorbs again.

Hit me with some butter.

Add butter at the end or olive oil.

It's delicious.

- [Ernie] Pink oysters are a really flashy species of oyster.

The term rubbery is not a term I would use, but they're a little bit like that.

And they've got almost a pork like flavor.

Get them just a little bit crispy so that you get a little bit of crunch with them, and then it burst almost like eating bacon where you get that burst of fat coming out when you bite into it.

They're spectacular.

- [Cathy] Pioppinos are another one of the firmer mushrooms, and they've got a good just woodland, nutty, earthy flavor.

- If you need a mushroom for miso soup, pioppinos are the way to go.

- Also with pasta, especially if it's a very light sauce, and a little goat cheese.

A little goat cheese.

- A few more things.

You really can't over cook mushrooms because they're built with those tight webs of hyphae that don't absorb or release water easily, so they won't dry out and they won't get mushy.

Also, you may have heard that you should never wash mushrooms, leading you to spend an annoying amount of time painstakingly wiping down individual mushrooms and using a horrifying amount of paper towels.

But with most mushrooms you get from the store, it's fine to dunk them in water.

They have special proteins that make them water resistant, which is why they don't immediately rot after a rainstorm in the woods.

Also, it's okay if you don't like mushrooms, but you're wrong.

- I think I would probably just be a puffball.

I think I'd be a puffball, just waiting for some kid to come stomp and make a lovely cloud to dance in.

- I would be a destroying angel just because- - [Ernie] Terrible answer.

- [Cathy] they're tall and elegant.

- [Rossie] ] Are they poisonous?

- They are deadly.

[Ernie and Cathy laughing] - [Man] Oh, that's all I have.

- [Rossie] Thank you.

[upbeat music] - [Announcer] Want to take a deeper dive on current science topics?

Check out our weekly science blog.

- [Frank] Most people think of drones as fairly large, but technology is allowing drones to be smaller and smaller.

That means they can fly into tighter and tighter spaces.

So hold onto your seats for a different kind of visit to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

[traffic noises] - [Voiceover] Welcome.

- [Man] Hello.

Yes, you'll find the dinosaurs up on the third floor.

We offer seven floors over two buildings.

[dolphin grunting] [birds chirping] - [Woman] Hey look, the diving pelican.

[waves crashing] [birds chirping] - [Woman] This reminds me of Topsail Beach.

- [Museum Guide] Hello, visitors.

Be sure to visit the Daily Planet theater to hear about drones in science.

[whooshing sounds] - [Woman] All [indistinct] converge, forming one huge continent called Pangea.

- [Man] Man, you gotta check out this T-Rex skull!

[dinosaur roaring] [animal growling] - [Man] Is that a T-Rex?

- [Woman] No, that's a Maxakalisaurus.

- [Man] This is castor canadensis.

- [Child] That's a beaver.

[bird cawing] - [Man] I didn't know that they had laser swords in [indistinct].

- [Man 2] Wow, there's so much to see here.

- [Woman] Specimens housed in the museum's research collection [indistinct] biodiversity.

- [Elizabeth] Hello, I'm Elizabeth Gardner, meteorologist for WRAL.

[animal roaring] - [Man] Hey, let's get the presentation up.

- [Man 2] Yeah, here comes Roland.

- [Museum Guide] Hello, museum visitors.

Head down to the Daily Planet theater.

Our talk on drones and science begins in less than a minute.

- [Woman] Time to set up another DNA sequencing run.

- [Man] I look forward to the Galapagos with more interest than any other part of the voyage.

[dinosaur roaring] - [Man] Two, one, zero.

All [indistinct].

Lift off!

We have a lift off.

- [Man 2] Drones are great tools for scientists to get a new perspective on the plant.

We use drones to map trees all around the world.

Now, some of our drones look like small airplanes, but others are even smaller quad copters like this one.

[upbeat music] - And that's it for "Sci NC" for this week.

I'm Frank Graff.

Thanks for watching.

[upbeat music] Want more "Sci NC"?

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- [Announcer] Additional funding for the "Sci NC" series is provided by GSK.