Episodes

  • Potential Problems with Blight-Resistant Chestnuts

    Potential Problems with Blight-Resistant Chestnuts
    Jan 6 2025
    For some background on the developing story of creating a blight-resistant American chestnut, please check out the podcast episode a few episodes back with Erik Carlson.

    Jared Westbrook is a geneticist with the American Chestnut Federation. In this episode we talk about what went wrong with the initial round of trials for blight-resistant chestnuts, how to combine targeted genetic approaches to hybridizing American and Chinese Chestnut trees for blight resistance, thousands of years of human selection in the chinese chestnut genome as an agricultural species, problems with inheritance for the oXo gene that breaks down oxalic acid, why oxalic acid production might not be all that's involved with the virulence of Chestnut blight, and more. This is a good episode, even for laypeople who may not be familiar with basic genetic science. To learn more about the American Chestnut Federation and to join a local chapter, check out www.tacf.org

    Ad-Free versions of every podcast episode are available on the patreon at www.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt
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    1 hr and 25 mins
  • Better Living Through Reptiles

    Better Living Through Reptiles
    Jan 2 2025
    In this episode we sit down with Kyle Elmore of the youtube channel @popmilk for a two hour talk about herping (lurking for reptiles and amphibians), creating habitat, passionately obsessing over milksnakes, why Indigo Snakes are so chill, self-education, embracing the living world as a side-hobby, coping with habitat loss, naming milk snakes,, the glory of tin, getting bit by copperheads, being attacked by africanized bees, teaching organic chemistry, and more.

    Check out Kyle's stuff at @popmilk_herping (instagram) and @popmilk (youtube).

    Reminder that if the ads bum you out (and they should, because they're mostly for garbage and adjusted to targeted demographics), for a measly five bucks a month you'll have access to all the Crime Pays podcast episodes on the Crime Pays Patreon at www.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt
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    2 hrs and 19 mins
  • The Ruined Christmas Podcast

    The Ruined Christmas Podcast
    Dec 31 2024
    Rants about ruining Christmas, disappointed family members, mixing and making soil recipes, Thornscrub Sanctuary update, maintaining a positive outlook despite the spiritually-poisonous effervescent fart of modern consumer society, feral pigs, ruderal plants, and more.

    Before you whine about the ads, keep in mind all episodes of the podcast are available Ad-Free on the Crime Pays Patreon.
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    1 hr and 54 mins
  • Dissecting the American Retail Slum

    Dissecting the American Retail Slum
    Dec 30 2024
    In this episode we talk with Crime Pays Field Correspondent WIll Doran about his traumatic experiences in the Car and Retail Slums of the American Sunbelt, possibly one of the ugliest and most soul-crushing landscapes in the first world. This is a landscape that exists as pure "anti-culture", and as many of you may know, is the only kind of landscape and infrastructure option offered to many people living in the lower-latitude United States. It leads to deteriorating mental, emotional, spiritual and physical health in myriad ways, and we here at Crime Pays are excited to lance the figurative boil and share our findings on the pus that oozes out with our listeners. We also discuss options for dealing with it if you live in these places, especially for young people : stay away from excessive playing of videogames, pot-smoking or booze and immerse yourself in art, plants, science (and occasional psychedelic use in "nature" if you feel comfortable) in beautiful places.

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    www.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt
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    59 mins
  • Talking Philosophy with Kerry Knudsen

    Talking Philosophy with Kerry Knudsen
    Dec 16 2024
    Kerry Knudsen is a Lichen Biologist who originated outside of academia and worked in construction until becoming fascinated by the natural world and immersing himself in desert lichens.In this episode we talk about the modern human approach to the living world, why the study of natural sciences is becoming increasingly popular among people outside of academia, the biosphere as a living machine, self-education using the internet, and more.

    A lichen is the symbiosis between a fungus and algae or cyanobacteria, many of which can go dormant for extremely long periods of time and tolerate harsh winds, drying out, being blasted with UV radiation, and slowly cooked on the rocks that they grow on. Some of them can live for thousands of years.

    If scrolling through the obnoxious ads is getting tiring, then join the Patreon, where you'll have early access videos and ad-free access to every podcast episode, plus photo posts, patreon-only lectures and other benefits.
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    1 hr and 53 mins
  • What Happened to the Transgenic American Chestnut?

    What Happened to the Transgenic American Chestnut?
    Dec 11 2024

    Here's your reminder that all episodes of the Crime Pays podcast are available ad-free (because ads are the equivalent of cold sores) on the Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt.

    What happened to the transgenic American Chestnut? In January of 2024 news broke out that a "lab error" had "compromised years of research" regarding the re-introduction of American Chestnuts into Eastern North American forests, this time with a simple 700 base-pair gene for blight-resistance inserted into the tree's genome. For those that don't know, an invasive fungus from Asia that was unintentionally introduced to North America devastated the entire population of American Chestnuts, rendering the species "functionally extinct". Within the last decade, however, through genetic engineering, the insertion of a single gene from the wheat plant that can break down oxalic acid has made chestnut blight nothing but a minor pest to the trees whose genome has been altered with it.

    In this episode, we talk with PhD student Erik Carlson from SUNY Syracuse's College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry about this "lab error", how it really wasn't that big of a deal on the long run, and how the project is still on track.
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    1 hr and 50 mins
  • Mycorrhizal Harvesting, Sky Island Extirpations

    Mycorrhizal Harvesting, Sky Island Extirpations
    Dec 10 2024
    In this episode we talk about how we are explicitly NOT condoning it, how to harvest mycorrhizae from soil duff, what is "KNR" and what "IMO"s are, the paucity of study concerning mushroom diversity in the Davis Mountains and how some species there might be eventually extirpated due to the drying climate, the fungal genus Tarzetta, and more. The episode is polished off by a 40 question botany quiz.

    If the ads are bumming you out, then stop whining about having to hit the fast forward button and join the Crime Pays Patreon, where you'll never have to hit the fast forward button again... https://www.patreon.com/c/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt
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    1 hr and 23 mins
  • Adam Black is NOT a Permaculture Activist

    Adam Black is NOT a Permaculture Activist
    Dec 8 2024

    In this episode I sit down withAdam Black about planting fruit trees in the park, how to save the honeybees, why invasive species don't exist, and how to properly apply a glue-on moustache and select proper attire so as to "fit in" when botanizing in West Texas. /s

    Adam Black is a field botanist and researcher with Bartlett Tree Research Laboratories and Arboretum who has traveled to numerous continents and countries researching oaks and conifers (he has nothing to do with permaculture, that is just a sick joke on my part).

    Before you whine about the ads (yes, they're terrible, I know), keep in mind that for a measly $5 a month you can have access to all the podcast episodes ad-free on the Patreon. The ads really are insidious, but your ability to hit the "15-seconds-fast-forward" button is key to otherwise ensuring that the sleazy morons that advertise on the podcast help support the podcast by paying to bark in the ears of people who will never buy their products. Fast-forward through them with spite and realize that it's supporting me to keep doing what I'm doing.
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    1 hr and 25 mins