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Wild Thing

Foxtopus Ink

Wild Thing

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A weekly Science and Society & Culture podcast featuring Laura Krantz
 8 people rated this podcast
Wild Thing

Foxtopus Ink

Wild Thing

Claimed
Episodes
Wild Thing

Foxtopus Ink

Wild Thing

Claimed
A weekly Science and Society & Culture podcast featuring Laura Krantz
 8 people rated this podcast
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Chances are, you’ve already seen Bigfoot. On pizza boxes, advertising jerky, drinking beer, driving monster trucks. There are a lot of people who really do believe. There are even more who just think the idea of Bigfoot is fun. And then there a
In memory of Peter Byrne, the longest-surviving member of the Four Horsemen of Sasquatchery. After looking for Bigfoot for decades, the 97-year-old tracker passed away in August 2023. Host Laura Krantz had the opportunity to interview him in 20
Announcing "The Search For Sasquatch", a middle-grade, non-fiction book based on the first season of Wild Thing! Both the hardcover book and the audiobook (narrated by Laura Krantz), will be out on October 11, 2022. Here's a sneak listen to the
A faulty reactor overheats, melting through its containment unit and poisoning a nearby town with radioactive gas. A spacecraft pushes further into deep space, exploring new galaxies, powered by a small nuclear reactor. An ordinary scientist is
What were the long-term effects of the SL-1 explosion? Nuclear power is a shrinking part of America’s energy picture; accidents and fear have tarnished it, and the old reactor fleet is reaching its end. Yet nuclear energy could provide a bulwar
Incidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima are often what comes to mind when we think about nuclear energy. Thankfully, events like these actually very rare. So does that mean the risks we associate with atomic power are as bad as we think? How goo
The aftermath of SL-1 highlighted a problem that we still haven’t solved, despite decades of searching for a solution: what to do with the waste. Our plans to store nuclear waste inside Yucca Mountain in Nevada fell through. So now what? Can we
As firefighters and medical personnel staged operations at SL-1, a plume of radioactive gas silently made its way over the Idaho desert, creeping towards the nearby towns. How much of a risk did the explosion at SL-1 actually pose? And what doe
The only three people who really knew what had transpired at SL-1 were dead, and it would take months to determine what likely happened—plenty of time for rumors and gossip to take hold. Was there a love triangle? A fight gone wrong? A murder s
Two of the men working the reactor that night had personal problems. They hated each other. They fought with their bosses. And those problems could easily distract a man from his work—but what does that mean when you’re working with nuclear mat
The horrifying devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki proved the destructive capabilities of nuclear power. But, in the aftermath of World War II, we started to experiment with how we could use atomic energy for good. It was the dawn of a new er
How did we figure out that such a tiny particle—an atom—held all that power? For that matter, what is an atom? A primer on the basics of atomic energy—including its destructive capabilities—to help us better understand the events that unfolded
Two dead men. One man missing. A hole blown in the side of the reactor. A cloud of radioactive gas so hot, it was off the charts. What happened with the SL-1 reactor feeds into our deep fear about the dangers of nuclear energy. But we remain in
Back for its third season, Wild Thing uses science, history and culture to probe the realities of nuclear energy today, while analyzing our own fascination— and ambivalence—with all things atomic. What are the true risks? And what is the actual
If we find them, aliens would be, well, alien, right? Maybe not as alien as we think. In his book, zoologist Arik Kershenbaum makes the case for why what we know about animals on Earth could reveal what aliens might be like, too.*Season 2 of W
Seth Shostak, chief astronomer with the SETI Institute and author of Confessions of an Alien Hunter, sits down to talk about SETI's mission, what they're looking for, and how they think about the search. *Season 2 of Wild Thing is produced by
Rob Swiatek introduces us to MUFON—the Mutual UFO Network—whose mission is to collect reports of and investigate UFO sightings all over the US and the world. Swiatek has been with MUFON for decades and explains how the organization works and wh
Silvano Colombano, a long-time NASA scientist, argues that the search for extraterrestrial life makes some erroneous assumptions. We talk to him about what those assumptions are, why they might be wrong, and how we might think differently about
UFOs, aliens, other-worldly beings—all have appeared in art over the centuries (including, possibly, in Renaissance-era paintings). But some of the most recent depictions appear in the works of Frank Buffalo Hyde, an Onondaga artist who uses UF
While we hypothesized about exoplanets for years, it wasn't until recently that we could confirm their existence. Astrophysicist and MIT professor Sara Seager has been at the leading edge of the search for exoplanets. *Wild Thing premium membe
2020—already not a great year—was made worse for astronomers when the Arecibo Telescope collapsed in Puerto Rico. Abel Méndez, an astronomer who grew up in the telescope's shadow, talks about the importance of Arecibo and what future plans may
David Anderson likes the idea of aliens, but he’s not a big fan of the TV show Ancient Aliens. The archeologist has real problems with how the show portrays his chosen field and diminishes human achievements. But, he says, while the show is mis
Sarah Stewart Johnson is a planetary scientist who has worked on several Mars missions and is also the author of The Sirens of Mars: Searching for Life on Another World. She talks to us about her book, the latest mission to the Red Planet—the P
Renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson gives his perspective on the rare earth hypothesis, the difficulty of wrapping one's head around the universe, and the problem with movie aliens.*Wild Thing premium members get access to all of seaso
In a wide-ranging interview, Joe Scott, the host of the popular YouTube series Answers With Joe and fellow science nerd, discusses panspermia, whether octopuses are aliens, and the rare earth hypothesis.*Wild Thing premium members get access t
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