weeds: a growth industry if ever there was one. martha teichner will be reporting our cover story. >> sort of like one of those bad 1950s science fiction movies where the plant grows overnight and wraps itself around you in the morning. >> reporter: where weeds are concerned, it's mostly us against them. >> this is an absolute enemy of the state. >> reporter: but not everybody hates them. weeds and those who love them later this sunday morning. >> osgood: then we move on to some fascinating but rarely seen photographs of a woman who would become the very image of a hollywood star. tracy smith explores a remarkable body of work. >> reporter: she was rarely more beautiful or perhaps more fragile than in 1962 when lawrence schiller captured these images of marilyn monroe. did you feel like you were exploiting her? >> let me say this. marilyn needed the exploitation for her own purposes. >> reporter: and marilyn was only one of his subjects. >> so now i'm going to have an exhibit here, a one man show. >> reporter: a walk through history with photographer lawrence schiller later on sunday morning. >> osgood: next we have a question or rather the answer to a question for our colleague susan spencer of "48 hours." susan, who is alex trebek? >> reporter: the answer is, for 28 years he has hostedded one of the most popular quiz shows on television. >> and the correct response is, who is alex trebek? >> reporter: who indeed? we'll find out later on sunday morning. >> osgood: our lee cowan has been off to cover a convention like none other with a cast of characters, all of whom, are on a first-name basis with one another. ♪ betty, she's a star >> reporter: the middle of nebraska we found a gathering that has gotten a lot of ink in the past from the "new york times" to one of the state's oldest weeklies. look at that. on the front page what garners these ladies so much attention? well, in short it's what they're called. it may be one of the few places where being on a first-name basis can be, well, really confusing. right, betty. >> (all of them:) right. reporter: the betty convention later on sunday morning. >> osgood: anthony mason catches up with the outstanding singer rufus wainwright. nancy giles shares hair-raising thoughts about hair. from steve hartman we'll hear about one town's tribute to a neighbor who always delivered and more. but first here are the headlines for this sunday morning the 19th of august, 2012. we begin in london where the latest chapter in the saga of wicky leaks julian assange is now unfolding. kelly is with us from the front of the building where assange has taken refuge which houses the embassy of ecuador. good morning, kelly. >> reporter: good morning, charlie. no sign of julian assange just yet but we have heard from one of his lawyers who came out to speak to reporters less than an hour ago. he said assange has no plans to surrender. in fact they're mounting a new legal challenge. no details on what this legal challenge might be. assange has been fighting extradition to sweden to answer questions on a couple of sexual assault cases. that's because he fears the country will then send him on on on 0 to the united states where he believes he's face trial, possibly the death penalty for releasing those secret documents on his website. the ecuadorians have granted him asylum but the british government is denying safe passage. most legal experts agree that he has only two options now: either surrender himself and go to sweden or stay holedded up here at this embassy indefinitely. charlie. >> osgood: thank you. here at home, republican vice president shall contender paul ryan is insisting that the g.o.p. plan to make over medicare will not hurt seniors. ryan campaigned in florida saturday with his 78-year-old mother at his side. for his part on the stump in new hampshire, president obama said americans aren't buying what he called republican snake oil. high winds and storms in texas yesterday grounded special aircraft being used to combat an outbreak of west nile virus. the disease spread by keet owes has killed ten people in dallas county and sickened dozens more. they are hoping to resume spraying today. there's a growing chorus of condemnation over a jail sentence handed down friday in russia. three women from a punk rock band were sentenced to two years in jail for staging a protest against president putin inside a church. a sight to behold for classic car lovers. in detroit yesterday more than 40,000 muscle cars and vintage vehicles stretched 16 miles rolling along woodward avenue. it was billd as the world's largest one-day automotive event. on the other side of michigan, this was the sight to behold. as many as nine water spouts were spotted out on lake michigan yesterday. that's more than are seen in a typical year. adding to more... more are expected today. now today's weather. mostly sunny out west and in the northeast. for much of the country though, a good soaking today. the week ahead will bring rain to the south and east and will also keep an eye on tropical storms now churning out in the atlantic ocean. coming up... >> marilyn new more about photography at that moment than i did. >> reporter: the marilyn we barely knew. but next weeding out the >> osgood: and the goat here doesn't like to butt in on other people's affairs, but she can teach us a thing or two about weeds. her attitude: if you can't beat 'em, eat 'em. martha teichner digs deep to get to the root of our sunday morning cover story. ♪ she comes on like a rose ♪ but everybody knows >> reporter: the dictionary definition of a weed: a plant considerd undesirable, unattractive or troublesome, especially one growing where it is not wanted. ♪ she'll really do you in >> reporter: they insult us by their very existence. ♪ she gets under your skin >> reporter: they bring out the killer instinct in us. we wage chemical warfare against them. and they win. this story is about the survival of the fittest. who might that be? no doubt about it: weeds. >> this is an absolute enemy of the state. there's no question whatsoever. >> reporter: the name of this menace: pig weed. an or nary manageable nuisance until recently. now a frank everen weed. >> some are five or six foot tall. it's only about 70 days old. if you look closely inside you may or may not be able to see it. if you look closely inside here is our cotton crop. >> reporter: it's overwhelmed. it's marched across the south. it has devastated cotton and soybean crops. >> if you're awful weak, this plant will beat you. if you go to the beach, this plant will beat you. this plant will put us out of business. >> reporter: stanley culpepper is a weed scientist with the university of georgia. his students call him dr. pigweed. >> that was at the top of that plant four days ago. all right. so that's at least eight inches in four days. >> reporter: what it looked like on july 10 and now. this relentless killer of crops was discovered eight years ago right here on this farm in macon county georgia. >> in 2012 we confirmed it in 76 georgia counties. we went from 500 acres to well over two million acres. >> reporter: how did it happen? kills weeds to the root. reporter: ever hear of round-up. yep, that stuff that is advertisedded on tv. >> no root, no weed. no problem. >> reporter: round-up, the commercial game for an herbicide called glyfosate was marketed to farmers at a miracle weed killer. its manufacturer genetically engineered cotton and soybean seeds so they were round-up resistant. >> round-up used to be just a cure-all for everything. >> reporter: harold johnson farms a thousand acres in macon. all he had to do was spray on round-up. his round-up resistant crops lived. the pig weed died until it didn't. >> all of a sudden, they would lay down and stand right back up. they got to the point where they wouldn't lay down. >> reporter: the pig weed had genetically engineered itself and become round-up resistant too. now here's the terrifying part. >> this plant is going to produce in excess of 500,000 seeds. >> reporter: one plant? one female plant. if it survives it produces a half a million seeds. >> reporter: desperate growers have deployed their own army against their enemy. like foot soldiers from another century. to hand weed huge fields. and dr. pig weed has a warning. >> this plant has absolutely adapted to everything that we have done so far. >> reporter: new york city hopes larry's goats will have better luck against another weed gone wild. an invase i have been variety of a weed called... plaguing a park, an enormous former landfill on statten island the city is restoring. the experiment, to see if the goats will eat their way through two acres of this stuff. >> the goat eats about 20% of its body weight a day. >> reporter: that's what? that's 65, 70-bound goat. that goat will eat 15 to 20 pounds of food a day. we have 20 goats. the objective was to do it in six weeks. >> reporter: it turns out they love this weed. six weeks later, success. >> this is how this thing actually grows. >> reporter: wow. that is one long line. now kudzu was actually brought here deliberately. >> it was touted, sad to say, about u.s.d.a., about 100 years ago as being the next miracle plant. it was brought over from asia, planted along the embankments of railroads. >> reporter: this man is a weed scientist with the u.s. department of agriculture. >> and somewhere along the way in the post world war ii era it kind of got out of hand. >> reporter: boy, did it! it's about eight million acres of it now in the united states. >> reporter: really? yep. reporter: there's so much of it, scientists are trying to turn it into a biofuel. really! but kudzu is not just a bad joke. the weed that ate the south. kudzu is something a lot scarier. >> now, 50 years ago, you would be hard pressed to find it north of the potomac. today it's pretty much everywhere north of the potomac. two years ago they found it for the first time in canadian in southern ontario. >> reporter: kudzu has become a map of climate change. >> one of the things that keeps a lot of these invasive species in check has been really cold winters. as the winters have warmed, what's happened is that slowly it is migrating north ward. it is simply responding to the change in temperature that's already occurring. it does not a political stake in climate change. >> reporter: so anything can anything be learned from weeds? >> between the sidewalk and the asphalt it's not only able to grow but to thrive. >> reporter: this man takes us to the weedy parking lot behind his office. >> there's seven billion of us on the globe right now. we're going to have to feed those people. how do we do that with less water, less soil, less fertilizer and a climate on steroids? yet here you have this plant that is able to grow up through the asphalt. yeah, we can learn a whole lot from how this plant functions, how it does and take those lessons and apply them to cultivatedded plants as a means to adapt. >> this is like a little buffet of weeds. >> reporter: this woman knows she can't beat weeds so she eats them. >> this is lambs quarters. reporter: is this something that farmers will really work hard to get rid of? >> yes it's very nutritious. as long as you're picking it the right way and cooking it. >> reporter: she is a lawyer turned weed forager. >> this is a sweeping jenny. reporter: she supplies edible weeds to a couple of the fanciest restaurants on the east coast. >> this is is a weed that i think almost anyone can find. when it's small it's onion grass but what happens is it gets these aerial bulbettes. >> reporter: it's juicy, garlicky but delicate. >> yes. i think of it as my dry meadow. >> reporter: the backyard of her rural new jersey home is a weed meadow. >> the laugh ender is flowering. reporter: her message? one person's weeds are another's lunch. and they can be delicious. >> this is one of our big discoveries. >> reporter: using recipes from her just published weed cook book, she and her daughter showed us, with a few of the weeds we picked, creeping jenny tomato and mozzarella salad. curried lamb and lamb's quarters meat balls and amaranth onion and feta phylo triangles. no, not our old friend pig weed but a relative. >> but i would love to get some clean pig weed and try and see if it tastes the same as this one. >> reporter: really? maybe it could be transformed from enemy into friend. >> possibly. reporter: and i know where she can find a lot of it. next, a short history of a troubled land. did you know when heartburn, it's too late to take prilosec because... but it's but zantac® works differently. it relieves heartburn in as little as 30 minutes. in fact, so, when heartburn strikes, try zantac® this has been medifacts for zantac® [ male announcer ] to hold a patent that has changed the modern world... would define you as an innovator. to hold more than one patent of this caliber... would define you as a true leader. to hold over 80,000... well, that would make you... the creators of the 2012 mercedes-benz e-class... quite possibly the most advanced luxury sedan ever. ♪ join mercedes-benz usa on facebook for the best summer sweepstakes. >> osgood: and now a from our sunday morning almanac. august 19, 1919, 93 years ago today. the day of an historic turn-around that echos down to our own times. for that was the day afghanistan won its independence from great britain. beginning in 1838, britain had fought three wars for control of afghanistan, wars that left fought three wars for control of afghanistan, wars that left their scars on british politics and popular culture. in the sherlock holmes stories, dr. watson was a wounded veteran of the second afghan war in 1880. while rudd yard kipling in his 1888 novella, the man who would be king, told the tale of two figure shish us british sailors of fortune. the story that was turned into a movie in 1975. >> 1, 2, 3. osgood: starring michael caine and sean connery. >> when we're done with you, you'll be able to stand up and slaughter your enemies like civilized men. >> osgood: needless to say the swashbuckling pair's afghan adventures did not end well. nor in the end did brit up's. in the decades that followed afghan independence, the country was wracked by bloody coups and wars, including the soviet invasion of 1979. the u.s.-backed insurgency against the soviets. the victory of the islamist taliban in 1998. and the american invasion to oust the taliban and al qaeda in 2001. the battle that goes on to this day. >> it is time to focus on nation-building here at home. >> osgood: as of now the u.s. and its nato allies plan to withdraw most of their troops by the end of 2014. nearly a century after the country celebrated its first independence day. history's judgment on the latest intervention has yet to be made. while back in britain, many people still remember the words of the mid 20th century prime minister harold macmillan. rule number one in politics, he said, never invade afghanistan. still to come... >> oh, this is fun. sgood: splitting hairs with nancy giles. with less chronic low back pain. imagine you, with less pain. cymbalta can help. cymbalta is fda-approved to manage chronic musculoskeletal pain. one non-narcotic pill a day, every day, can help reduce this pain. tell your doctor right away if your mood worsens, you have unusual changes in mood or behavior or thoughts of suicide. antidepressants can increase these in children, teens, and young adults. cymbalta is not approved for children under 18. people taking maois or thioridazine or with uncontrolled glaucoma should not take cymbalta. taking it with nsaid pain relievers, aspirin, or blood thinners may increase bleeding risk. severe liver problems, some fatal, were reported. signs include abdominal pain and yellowing skin or eyes. tell your doctor about all your medicines, including those for migraine and while on cymbalta, call right away if you have high fever, confusion and stiff muscles or serious allergic skin reactions like blisters, peeling rash, hives, or mouth sores to address possible life-threatening conditions. talk about your alcohol use, liver disease and before you reduce or stop cymbalta. dizziness or fainting may occur upon standing. ask your doctor about cymbalta. imagine you with less pain. cymbalta can help. go to cymbalta.com to learn about a free trial offer. go to cymbalta.com for ocean spray cranberry juice cocktail. it tastes real good, and it's good for you. i use it to make our refreshing cranberry lemonade. ahh! summer. find all our recipes at oceanspray.com. you know, ronny... folks who save hundreds of dollars by switching to geico sure are happy. and how happy are they jimmy? i'd say happier than a bodybuilder directing traffic. he does look happy. get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. >> osgood: remember hair, the musical. curtain going up now on nancy giles' thoughts on hair. ♪ darling ♪ give me a head with hair, long, beautiful hair ♪ ♪ shiny, >> reporter: here's the thing about hair. if it's straight you want it curly. if it's curly you want it like cher's. the color is never right. the length is off. whatever it is, we wish it was different. and have you noticed how everyone has an opinion about it. even if it's about 16-year-old gabby douglas. the first black woman to win olympic gold for the usa as an all round gymnast. makes you want to stand up and cheer, right? wrong. instead, social media buzzed with snackery remarks about her hair. and some of the snacker came from black women. things like she needs some gel and a brush. time for a hair intervention. really? seriously? why are we all hung up on hair? >> do you long for longer hair? reporter: maybe it's all that commercials telling us the only hair to have is straight and shiny and always blowing in the wind. but for some of us, that look is hard to achieve without chemicals, extensions or even wigs. i always wanted different hair. and here's the proof. dig this. notebook after notebook of my elementary school doodles of the marleau thomas "that girl" hair-do. bangs and flips. it was like an archeological discovery of my deep-rooted hair dissatisfaction. and then, things changed. remember the late '60s and '70s when after rows were hip, proud and sexy? i remember my first after row and i still have one. thick and proud but it wasn't always that way. conventional wisdom was that straight hair was neater, more professional looking. here i am with that relaxed hair look. apparently my hair was tense. i tried braid extensions. hair that moved. but it still didn't feel right. 17 years ago i cut out all the fake and startedded from scratch. ♪ you know what i love, that's right, my hair ♪ ♪ i really love my hair >> reporter: when i saw this sesame street video written by a dad for his daughter, a video that's gotten almost four million hits on you-tube, it made me so happy. because kids today will watch this and love their hair. whatever kind of hair it is. ♪ my hair looks good >> reporter: like what could you do for me? >> first, nancy, i just want to say that your hair is beautiful. >> reporter: meet the owner of a hair salon in brooklyn, new york. now this is a salon where hair doesn't get straightened. and women come here from all over the country for natural hair care and philosophical discussions. >> i think somehow we're taught that we are not good enough just the way we are. >> reporter: don't they listen to the billy joel song? "i love you just the way you are." ♪ don't go changing >> reporter: and more and more people are doing just that. you can see it on the streets. in advertising. even celebrities are loving their hair. every kind of way. ♪ i'll take you just the way you are ♪ >> reporter: ever follicle, ever texture, every style. so fee