[upbeat music] - Hi there, I'm Frank Graff.

North Carolina already boasts more species of salamander than anywhere else in the world.

And guess what?

A new species was just discovered.

Meet the state's newest salamander.

Coming up, on "SCI NC".

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[Voice Over] Additional funding for the "SCI NC" series is provided by GSK.

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North Carolina's ecology is very diverse, coast, piedmont, mountains.

That's why there are so many species of salamander found here.

The irony of the state's newest salamander species is that it was first spotted decades ago but it's only been identified because of new technology.

- [Jeffrey] A couple of good logs over that way.

- [Frank] You could call these scientists, detectives, trying to solve one of nature's mysteries.

- [Jeffrey] Well, we just like to get some idea of what the adults are doing.

- [Stephanie] Those look like they might really be good logs.

- What with the populations are like.

We like to try to find these salamanders in new places.

We've found them in this area before, so we know they're here, but sometimes we like to come and just make sure they're still here.

- [Frank] They're searching for the Carolina Sandhills salamander.

It's a newly discovered and rare salamander species.

- [Stephanie] This looks good.

There's some sphagnum here.

This is like opening Christmas presents.

Just look under there and you find a surprise It might just be leaves.

It might be a millipede.

It might be an earthworm.

- [Narrator] Or you might just find a salamander.

- [Jeffrey] They have spots on the sides.

- [Frank] North Carolina's diverse geography, makes it home to the greatest variety of salamanders in the nation.

- [Jeffrey] This isn't Atlantic Coast slimy salamander Plethodon chlorobryonis.

The salamanders in the genus plethodon are all terrestrial.

They, kind of defy the word amphibian.

They don't use water to breed, but they have to stay moist and wet, but they undergo their whole life cycle on land.

- [Frank] Finding any salamander is exciting.

- [Jeffrey] He left on cue.

- [Frank] But this is not the salamander researchers were looking for.

- [Stephanie] Ow!

It's a thorn.

- [Frank] The Carolina Sandhills salamander is the state's 64th confirmed species.

- Yes.

They're fairly rare, even though this is where you look for them.

You still can look and look and not find one.

- [Frank] The Carolina Sandhills salamander is only found in the Sandhills region.

It lives in springs and along blackwater streams in what's left of the longleaf pine ecosystem.

Longleaf pines used to stretch from Southern Virginia to South Florida.

Only about 3% of the ecosystem remains.

- [Stephanie] There's an earthworm.

- [Frank] Besides its limited range, what also makes the Carolina Sandhills salamander unique is the story of how it was identified.

- And so it's quite exciting to be able to show that we are still able to find new species of vertebrates, right here in North Carolina.

[upbeat music] - [Frank] Our salamander tale starts in the wet lab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

The lab preserves multiple species of all of the animals found around the entire State for research purposes.

- All these specimens, are documentation of what we have here, where they occur now and where they used to occur.

We try to document a range of species to the extent we possibly can.

- [Frank] Specimens of the Carolina Sandhills salamander were first collected in the 1960s.

- We determined that there was a strange salamander, who was a bit different than the Sandhills.

Set about trying to find out as much as we could about it.

Where does it occur?

What kind of stream?

What kind of habitat?

What do they look like?

How long is the larval period?

Where do they lay their eggs?

Anything we could find out about them.

- [Frank] At first glance, scientists thought this new salamander looked like a two-lined salamander, but not exactly.

- That form that they were finding in the Sandhills physiographic region of North Carolina was different in coloration and a little bit different size and certainly different in its natural history.

The kinds of streams that it would occupy in the Sandhills compared to other two-lined salamanders.

- [Frank] Compelling evidence, but not convincing.

Species can differ in appearance simply because of geographic location.

- Even if everything in the Sandhills did look differently it still could just be an ecological variant and not a distinct species.

- [Frank] Enter genetics and DNA sequencing.

- And we decided to take a fresh look at this salamander using modern genetic techniques that are now available to us.

By sequencing many genes of the Sandhill salamander compared to its relatives in the two-lined salamander group and then looking at the morphology, the size and shape of the animal, using our preserved museum specimens that go back all these decades and comparing those to their other close relatives, - [Frank] The results drum roll, please.

[drum rolling] - We have found that that unusual looking two-line salamander in the Sandhills of North Carolina is indeed a new species in science.

- [Jeffrey] That's what we're looking for, Carolina Sandhills salamander.

That's a female.

Their larval stage is at least year.

So, she's gotta be probably two or three years old.

- [Frank] And here is the Carolina Sandhills salamander in the wild.

It's much more colorful.

- [Jeffrey] It's best to handle amphibians with wet hands.

There's something about the Sandhills that makes it advantageous for this species to be reddish with reduced stripes.

But the genetics confirmed that it was distinct.

And that's the exciting part.

Using new tools to confirm something we've suspected all this time.

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- Scientific discoveries require intense dedication whether it's discovering that new salamander or new drug After a life changing experience, a researcher at RTI international, spent the next 30 years finding a new drug to fight tuberculosis.

[keyboard clicking] - My two favorite words when talking about any drug development, especially in a situation, for something like this that is so demanding is blessed stubbornness.

You have to just keep trying.

Keep going for it.

And if you ask my staff they will tell you that I say that all the time.

- [Frank] Blessed stubbornness, perseverance, determination, However you describe it, Doris Rouse is on a lifelong journey to save those suffering from tuberculosis.

- Well, we did develop and get approved, a drug to treat extensively drug-resistant TB which normally takes two years of treatment and injections and infusions that are very painful, very expensive and maybe a 30% success rate.

This new drug is six months of treatment with three oral medications.

Not nearly the toxicity and pain and a 90% success rate.

But what we wanna do, we're continuing to develop new drugs for tuberculosis because we want to shorten that treatment period to two months, so there's better compliance and it's not as expensive.

People can have more access to it and be better treated in that way.

- [Frank] Rouse's medical quest for a new TB drug has spanned 20 years.

- I'll tell you a story that will illustrate how the patients have responded to this treatment.

There was one young woman who was in a hospital being treated for extensively drug-resistant TB.

And nothing they tried was working.

There really is no established regimen for the XDR-TB because they have to try everything.

Nothing was working.

She turned 21 while she was there.

So after a month or two trying everything, they said we're gonna have to put her on this new drug, this pretomanid drug that was just approved.

Three weeks later, so someone was walking by her room and heard loud sobbing coming out from her room and thought maybe she was having a psychic break from being isolated from her family, or there was some side effect of the drug.

So they sent a mental health professional in.

And as it turns out, she was sobbing because she felt so much better.

And she knew that she would soon get well and be able to rejoin the family and that in fact is what happened.

So a story like that, that's quite motivational to keep us continuing with this drug and with others, to improve treatment.

So we'll see many lives saved as a result of this.

- [Frank] You're smiling.

You can honestly say I've made a difference.

- Yeah, we made a difference.

And I say we, because it really does take a team including patients that volunteered for clinical trials, scientists working on it.

It really was quite an international team.

- [Frank] But before hearing more about Doris Rouse's journey, you've got to understand the illness she's fighting.

Tuberculosis is found around the world.

- Tuberculosis has been around for thousands of years.

It's found in the mummies in Egypt, and it's still with us.

It kills more people than any other infectious disease.

1.6 million people die every year of tuberculosis.

That's over 4,000 people a day.

Not just drug sensitive TB which can be treated over six months with four drugs but also drug resistant TB.

And this extensively drug-resistant TB.

It is a danger, especially since it is so easily transmitted.

Tuberculosis can be transmitted.

It is transmitted through water droplets in the air.

For example, if I'm talking to you and I cough or I sneeze or I start singing.

It can be in the water droplets that come from my mouth and you could be infected with tuberculosis.

There's still so much more to be done.

We need additional drugs to treat tuberculosis We desperately need more new drugs, antibiotics, to treat these antibiotic resistant bacteria.

- [Frank] Rouse, witnessed the ravages of the disease, firsthand during her service in the Peace Corps in Liberia, - It was really life changing in that it gave me some insights on what I would wanna do with my life.

The people were wonderful, very supportive, helped me out.

There was no electricity or running water.

One of my very best students there got malaria, it became cerebral malaria.

Now he survived, he was never the same person.

It was really from that, that I got inspiration to do something.

And it changed my life.

- [Frank] After her service, Rouse joined RTI international, where she worked on transferring new technology into medical applications.

That set the stage for her research on tuberculosis.

- Initial discovery to implementation in healthcare, can be 20 years.

And then it wasn't a short term kind of cycle, it was a long term cycle that she was going to engage in.

And when you have those kind of people, who are determined, who are persistent, who are driving hard, willing to do that for a long time to make a difference in the world.

- [Frank] Rouse created a non-profit group called the TB Alliance, which brought together scientists, health professionals, and funders.

There were many setbacks, but the work continued.

- [Doris] And I think we're giving hope to the world that we can develop solutions for these very pressing worldwide health problems.

And we can do that by bringing together the public sector and the private sector and the resources and the expertise, in both of those.

You synthesize, or in the lab, put together any hundreds of drugs, and then you screen them to see which ones are going to be effective and which ones are gonna be safe.

And it's a long and trying process but its worth it.

- [Frank] The payoff came in a phone call - And so I was by my phone and I got a call.

- [Frank] That phone right there?

- That phone right there.

- [Frank] Okay.

- And I immediately broke into happy tears.

It was a great moment.

- [Frank] And sitting next to the phone was a statue.

- What is the story behind this?

- This fellow.

When I was in Peace Corps, I went to a leprosy treatment center and there was a man there who had lost, I think, all of his fingers, and most of one hand, beyond the fingers but he was carving and he carved this devil who was smiling.

And I thought, if he can do that in that situation I can keep pushing those drugs through development.

What I'm doing is a whole lot easier than what he's doing.

[techno music] - [Voice Over] Wanna take a deeper dive on current science topics?

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- Bird populations are falling worldwide, which is why scientists and bird lovers, flock to a nature preserve in the Sandhills, every fall.

They are marveling at the migration and counting the birds.

Students at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media explain.

[bird chirping] - [Narrator] You wouldn't think a wildlife ecologist would be stringing a net through the forest.

But Susan Campbell is doing just that to catch birds to see how they're doing and where they're going.

- [Susan] Bird banding allows us to learn about everything from how long birds live, to how large of a home range they have.

And also where they go when they migrate.

- [Narrator] This Cardinal has flown over and snared itself in the net.

Campbell gently places the bird in a white bag to await a physical exam and later, the attachment of an identification tag or band on its leg.

- [Susan] Once we apply the bands to the bird's leg we then hope we can follow them through space and time.

[titmouse chirping] - [Narrator] A Tufted titmouse, also snagged itself in the net.

There's a lot of information to gather.

Campbell checks the bird's health, measures its wingspan, weighs the titmouse, and attaches the ID band.

The number on the band allows researchers to track the path of the bird.

- [Susan] Bird banding at Weymouth Woods has been going on now for over 20 years.

And we have seen some changes in the bird populations here.

Most notably, we have recorded a decrease in migrants coming through the park.

- [Narrator] John Davis worries about the decline of the bird population at Weymouth Woods.

He's a bird lover, a fan of the park and owner of the Wild Birds Unlimited store in Southern Pines.

- Studies have shown that bird populations have decreased somewhat alarmingly, in the last several decades.

Some 30% of bird species or birds in general, are gone.

The biggest contributor to that would be loss of habitat and adequate supplies of the appropriate food for that particular species of birds.

- [Narrator] Even with a drop in the number of birds Weymouth Woods remains a haven for both permanent residents and birds migrating north and south.

- The thing that really attracts me to Weymouth Woods is its uniqueness and diversity.

All in one fairly concise, 900 acres tract.

- [Unknown Man] I would say the number one thing that you can't find anywhere else is the fact that we have old-growth longleaf forest here.

- [Narrator] Park superintendent, Billy Hartness says Weymouth Woods has the largest contiguous tract of longleaf pine north of Florida And is home to the Red-cockaded woodpecker.

- [Billy] They're a really special bird.

They are a woodpecker that makes their nesting cavity inside of a live, usually long leaf pine.

- [Narrator] But as suburbia expands, the Red-cockaded woodpecker and other birds face loss of habitat.

Adding to the problem are homeowners using pesticides and herbicides, starving birds of food that nature supplies.

[bird chirping] - [David] Birds will always choose natural food, so when we see them in our feeders, it's because there's not enough food out in nature at that time of the year for everybody that's trying to get the same food.

- [Narrator] That's where people come in.

At his shop in Southern Pines, David shows how to help the bird population.

- The seed is the single most important thing that we could possibly do to improve our bird feeding experience.

And not all seed is created equal.

This is one of our most popular mixes.

It's our choice mix.

And it has sunflower, shelled sunflower.

It has a safflower, which Cardinals adore and, it has shelled peanuts.

So there's a little bit of a variety for every bird, really, that would come to a feeder.

[bird chirping] - [Narrator] Back at Weymouth Woods Campbell and her team are ready to band another bird, a talkative Tufted titmouse.

- [Susan] I have so much more to learn from birds and bird banding.

But it's been a wonderful experience and I hope I can keep doing it for another 20 or 30 years.

- [Narrator] Exam done, bird banded.

Campbell now has all she needs.

- [Susan] Okay, I'm gonna let her go.

- [Narrator] As a birder and scientist, Campbell knows no single day tells you the whole story.

- [Susan] It's putting the days together.

And when you look at patterns over a week, a month, a year that's when it becomes interesting.

All those little pieces have to be there to be able to paint that picture.

- [Narrator] The picture biologists want to see is a time when birds can thrive in their natural habitats free from human interference.

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Looking for lesson plans?

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

- Think about it, insects fly and crawl and hop and wait till you see this hop.

Researcher Adrian Smith with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences uses high-speed photography to study the high jumper of the insect world.

[upbeat music] - I'd like you to meet some extraordinary insects Leafhoppers, treehoppers, froghoppers and planthoppers.

These are bugs you can find right outside, not far from your door.

As you might guess from their names, they're all incredible jumpers.

Just watch what they can do.

[upbeat music continues] All of those hoppers are plant feeding insects in the Order Hemiptera, closely related to cicadas.

And among all the fast jumping, spring-loaded insects.

These are some of the most well studied.

The research papers describing their jumps are incredible pieces of science filled with illustrations, electron micrographs and high speed video sequences.

But the grainy black and white videos in these research papers, don't do these organisms justice.

What these insects do is incredible.

And I think it deserves nice looking video.

So, I set out to capture them in up close detail and in slow motion video.

And now I've got a bunch of footage I wanna show you that I think captures how special these insects are.

My favorite type of hopper might be a leafhopper.

There are over 22,000 described species and you can tell them apart from other types of hoppers by the four rows of spines that run down their hind tibia.

Like all the insects you'll see in this, they have needle and straw like mouth parts to pierce plant stems and feed on sap.

They have to take in so much sap to extract the nutrients they need, they end up excreting a ton of sugary honeydew.

But I didn't set out to capture their skills in excrement flinging.

I wanted to capture them doing this.

Though adult leafhoppers have wings.

They usually get airborne by jumping.

Like all hoppers, they use their hind legs to jump, but they don't use big heavy muscles in their legs to do it, which you can tell by how long and skinny their legs are.

Instead the muscles they use to jump attach to the base of the legs and extend into the thorax.

To power the jumps, the muscles contract to briefly store energy, which when it's released, rotates this segment near the base of their legs, called the trochanter.

All the hoppers you'll see here, jump by rapidly rotating that same leg segment.

In terms of speed in this sequence, it takes the leafhopper just over six milliseconds to accelerate its body off the ground and into a jump.

It accelerates at a rate of 146 meters per second squared which is equivalent to experiencing just under 15Gs Treehoppers, a different family of Hemiptirans, are some of the coolest looking insects on earth.

They're famous for their incredible helmets which are outgrowths of the prothoracic segments directly behind their heads.

In some species they form huge spikes earning them their common name of thorn bugs.

With all the tree hoppers I filmed, their jumps are proceeded by a bunch of wing flapping.

They didn't ever lift off the ground using their wings.

Instead they kind of flap and seem to be warming themselves up, getting ready to jump.

Once they've launched themselves off the ground their wings kick in for flight.

Some treehoppers have been clocked accelerated into their jumps at 2,400 meters per second squared which is over twice as fast as the best performing leafhoppers.

The next group of hoppers are planthoppers.

There's over 12,000 species within this group.

Jumps of the ones I filmed seem chaotic and compared to leaf and tree hoppers, they tumble up into the air, flipping end over end and rolling.

This is likely due to either an out of sync release and extension of the legs or one of the legs slipping as they enter a jump.

Either way, once in the air, they stabilize when their wings are engaged and they start flying.

Last are froghoppers which are also known as spittle bugs.

The spittle bug name, comes from the ability of the nymphs, to turn their sap excrement into a frothy protective massive spittle.

Some froghoppers are among the fastest jumping insects ever recorded.

This big two-lined spittle bug, that I was able to film is a much slower jumper and its hind legs kept slipping on the platform which sent it rolling and flipping end over end, until like the planthoppers, it could gain control using its wings.

Aren't these jumping insects incredible?

I should mention that some of them can become pests.

You might've heard of the spotted lanternfly.

That's an invasive planthopper that's spread throughout the mid-Atlantic states, but most of them are totally harmless and you can go outside right now and find them for yourself.

I collected all the species you saw here by doing this, sweeping an insect net over brushy vegetation, or just collecting them by hand when I found them hanging out on the leaf.

I hope after watching this, next time you're outside, you'll look close to the vegetation and find some of these insects and see them in action for yourself.

[techno music] - And that's it for SCI NC.

I'm Frank Graff.

Thank you for watching.

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- [Voice Over] Funding for the SCI NC series is provided by GSK.