The Environmental Protection Agency recently announced new drinking water limits on a category of chemicals called polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.These chemicals are found in thousands of products that we use every day, such as plastics, Teflon, water proofing, fire retardant and others.But they are also known as “forever chemicals” because they accumulate rather than breakdown in the environment and human body, and can cause health problems such as cancer, liver damage, low birth weight...
Apr 30, 2024
27 min
Since the days of George Washington, the United States has been surveying farmers about their farm operations to monitor the health of the nation’s agricultural industry and the security of the food supply.The effort started in 1791, when Washington wrote to farmers requesting information on land values, crop acreages, crop yields, livestock values and taxes. Washington’s survey extended 250 miles north and south, and 100 miles east and west of his home in Mount Vernon, which today would enco...
Apr 9, 2024
24 min
The world's population has quadrupled in the last century and is expected to surpass 8 billion by 2050. This means that in the next 25 years or so, the world will need to produce about 60% more food to feed its estimated population.Furthermore, we’ll need to produce that food sustainably in unseasonable temperatures, drought and flood conditions, all while fighting disease and pests, and on less land.Jonathan talks to Clemson plant geneticist Rick Boyles on this episode of Earthly.Boyles is o...
Mar 5, 2024
35 min
Humans have forever turned to nature for artistic inspiration. The earliest cave paintings are at least 64,000 years old and depict images of wild animals, landscapes, and even the heavens. More recently, photographer Ansel Adams, poet Wendell Berry, sculptor Andy Goldsworthy, and movie director Werner Herzog have all produced great art by musing on the material world.Jonathan's guest on Earthly, continues in that tradition. Todd Anderson collaborates with scientists and travels to some of th...
Feb 14, 2024
32 min
Every 13 years in the Southeast and parts of the Midwest, countless cicadas rise out of the ground and breed. The spring and summer of 2024 marks the thirteenth year since the cicada brood known as brood XIX’s last emergence, which means in a few months they’ll be everywhere.Jonathan talks with Clemson University entomologist Eric Benson about the fascinating lifecycle of what are called “periodical cicadas.”Benson is going to tell us what we learned about brood XIX when it emerged in 2011, w...
Jan 30, 2024
21 min
Retirees and warm-weather seekers aren’t the only ones clamoring to move to the state of South Carolina. The Palmetto State is also under extreme pressure from invasive insects and plants that could devastate its agriculture industry and forests. In fact, a recent global report estimates that invasive species cause countries $423 billion a year in damage to crops, water, forests, wildlife, and more.In this episode of Earthly, Jonathan talks to Steven Long about South Carolina’s fight against ...
Jan 22, 2024
35 min
When Bob Wells and Mel Tormé penned “The Christmas Song” in 1945 and the Nat King Cole Trio recorded it in 1946, “Chestnuts Roasting on an open fire/Jack Frost nipping at your nose,” became a Christmas tradition.Now as our attention turns to the holidays, it's worth remembering that the American Chestnut tree that once dominated Southern Appalachian forests is gone. One recent article said that it numbered in the billions throughout its range. The tree was both ecologically and economically i...
Dec 12, 2023
29 min
The Eastern Hellbender is a mysterious creature. It has a scary name, slimy texture, lives a solitary life under rocks in remote AppalachianMountain streams, and is mostly nocturnal. Yet it’s also increasingly threatened and important to maintaining stream health.On this episode of Earthly, Jonathan talks to Clemson associate professor Cathy Jachowski.Jachowski studies stream ecology, and she’s going to tell us everything we ever wanted to know about the eastern hellbender — including the ori...
Nov 28, 2023
30 min
Clemson faculty member Kimberly Metris is not just an academic but also a licensed commercial pilot. One day while piloting skydivers to their jump altitude, Metris could see the Saharan dust plume over Upstate South Carolina and had a research epiphany to see what genetic matter was flying around in the sky. In this episode of Earthly, I talk to Metris about that epiphany, her work monitoring the skies for genetic matter, how she designed and constructed her own instrumentation, and wh...
Nov 14, 2023
29 min
Referred to in some scientific literature as "ecological zombies," feral hogs cost millions of dollars of damage to farms, fields and forests, and they are breeding and spreading at a rate that outpaces the efforts of wildlife professionals to control them. In this Halloween edition of Earthly, Jonathan talks to Greg Yarrow and Andrew Jamison about the feral hog problem in South Carolina and the Southeast. Yarrow is interim dean of Clemson's College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Science a...
Oct 31, 2023
23 min
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