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 struck by cosmic rays—and finds he has new powers. Fiction? Or fact? Or a little of both? Stories of nuclear peril and promise permeate American media, and especially comic books. In this bonus episode, we explore atomic comics and why nuclear ideas captured artists’ imaginations.

*Season 3 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Lincoln. Music and mixing by Louis Weeks.

*Find us on social media - @wildthingpod - and on our website https://wildthingpodcast.com/

Earthlings are fascinated by our nearest neighbor. In recent years, we've sent probes and talked seriously about sending people. But even a century ago, we were crazy about the Red Planet and the Martians we thought lived there. In this interview with author David Baron—recorded live at the Mountain Words Literary Festival—we'll learn all about the history of Mars madness.

*Season 2 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Lipinski. Music and mixing by Louis Weeks.

When we imagine life on other planets, it's often the stuff of science fiction. But in his book, zoologist Arik Kershenbaum makes the case for why what we already know about animals on Earth could reveal what aliens might be like, too.

*Season 2 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Lipinski. Music and mixing by Louis Weeks.

Seth Shostak is the chief astronomer at the SETI Institute and we’ll hear from him about SETI's mission: how they’re looking, what they're looking for, and how they think about the search.

*Season 2 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Lipinski. Music and mixing by Louis Weeks.

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 what they're looking for.

*Season 2 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Lipinski. Music and mixing by Louis Weeks.

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 the search.

*Season 2 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Lipinski. Music and mixing by Louis Weeks.

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 UFOs to talk about tribal histories and lore.

*Season 2 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Lipinski. Music and mixing by Louis Weeks.

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.

*Season 2 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Lipinski. Music and mixing by Louis Weeks.

2020 - already not a great year - was made worse for astronomers when the Arecibo Telescope collapsed in Puerto Rico. Abel Mendez, an astronomer who grew up in the telescope's shadow, talks about the importance of Arecibo and what future plans may bring.

*Season 2 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Lipinski. Music and mixing by Louis Weeks.

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 misguided, he also understands why these ideas about “pseudoarchaeology” are so appealing.

*Season 2 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Lipinski. Music and mixing by Louis Weeks.

Sarah Stewart Johnson is a planetary scientist who has worked on several Mars missions and is also the author of Sirens of Mars. She talks to us about the latest mission to the Red Planet—the Perseverance rover—and why our closest neighbor holds such fascination for Earthlings.

*Season 2 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Lipinski. Music and mixing by Louis Weeks.