Wild Thing is a long-form, narrative podcast about the obsessions that capture our imaginations. This sound-rich and deeply reported show examines the relationship between science and society—that point where scientific inquiry collides with our very human desire to find answers, even when there are none. Whether it's seeking out Sasquatch, looking skyward for extraterrestrial life, or probing the power of the atom, exploring the unknown helps us better understand ourselves. Every season, ho ...
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The Manx Wildlife Trust podcast exploring all things wild in nature upon the Isle of Man. Produced in association with Manx Radio.
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It's Wildlife Week 2024! Curator of Natural History at MNH, Laura McCoy, Team Wilder Co-ordinator at MWT, Lucy Chapman and Project Officer for UNESCO Biosphere IOM, Jo Overty talk to H about this years event.By Manx Radio
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WILDTHING - MANX BIRDLIFE POINT OF AYRE NATIONAL RESERVE
30:53
30:53
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https://youtu.be/jv3W24SufUU?si=Sh4qTNaAmX6aDEs0By Manx Radio
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Graham Makepeace-Warne from the Manx Wildlife Trust (MWT) talks about planting up the Island’s first Carbon Credit Project at The Crossags Fields, part of the MWT Hairpin Woodland Park.By Manx Radio
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Head of Engagement at Manx Wildlife Trust, Graham Makepeace-Warne, talks about his short film "Wildlife Remembered" being premiered in April and the concept of shifting baseline syndromeBy Manx Radio
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S1 Bonus Interview: In Memory of Peter Byrne
24:36
24:36
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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 2017, and learned that his search for Sasquatch was only one adventure in a life that was jam-packed with th…
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Liz Charter from the Manx Fungus Group talks to H about the first published checklist detailing the various fungi which have been recorded (thus far!) on the Isle of ManBy Manx Radio
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WILDTHING - WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR EXHIBITION at HOUSE OF MANANNAN
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14:46
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Curator of the exhibition - and Curator of Natural History at MNH, Laura McCoy, joins H to talk about the importance of the exhibition at the House of Manannan in Peel (Ends O8 Oct 2023)By Manx Radio
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WILDTHING - TEMPERATE RAIN FOREST PROJECT. COULD YOU BE A WARDEN?
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6:50
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As a new scheme is launched to create an area of Temperate or Celtic Rain Forest on the Island, Andree Dubbeldam from the MWT tells H what's happening - and how you can get involved . .By Manx Radio
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Manx Wildlife Trust CEO Leigh Morris and Community Ranger Hannah Phillips talk to H about the first 50 years of MWT, where it is now - and the futureBy Manx Radio
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Dr Lara Howe from the Manx Wildlife Trust introduces H to the joys of just a few of the seaweeds found around the Isle of Man.By Manx Radio
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Community Ranger Hannah Phillips tells H about how MWT is celebrating Valentine's this year - it's Love Your Beach Week!By Manx Radio
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Anna Graham chats to Howard about this year's Big Schools' Birdwatch and taking over the education role at Manx Birdlife.By Manx Radio
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Jen Adams from Manx Whale and Dolphin Watch talks to H about the Manx Nature Show.By Manx Radio
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As a new initiative gets underway to encourage people to get involved in wildlife projects in the north of the Island, we hear from MWT Community Ranger Hannah Phillips about community work and MWT Northern Supporter Group members Viv Davies and Kim Etherton.By Manx Radio
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Tweet of the week supremo, the early birder Tim Earl, talks to H about a very rare sighting of a buff-breasted sandpiper, fieldfares in numbers and a harbour home for a kingfisher . . .By Manx Radio
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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 first chapter. The audiobook is available for preorder here and there's also a beautifully illustrated ha…
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WILD THING - Isle of Man Fungus Group 10th anniversary weekend
6:40
6:40
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Consultant mycologist Nev Kilkenny talks about the development of the IOM Fungus Group, the importance of fungi and their vital relationship with treesBy Manx Radio
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WILD THING - Community consultations get underway
10:22
10:22
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MWT Community Ranger Hannah talks to Howard about her aim to create an Eastern Community GroupBy Manx Radio
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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 nucl…
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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 bulwark against the looming threat of climate change. Is it something we can make work for us, in spite of ourse…
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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 good are we at actually assessing those risks? And can we make things even less risky by removing humans from…
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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 safely contain these materials? Should the waste be in one location, or many? How do we warn future gener…
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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 does radiation actually do to the human body? We are constantly bathing in what’s called background radiation…
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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 suicide? A government cover-up? Or was all of this rumor and innuendo simply a distraction from the real pr…
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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 materials? At a reactor that, although managed by the military, seemed to be falling apart due to infrastruct…
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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 era in science, and, in that spirit, thousands of men arrived in Idaho, including the men whose deaths would…
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Hannah chats to Howard about what is a new role for MWT - and explains more about involving other groups in her first project, centred around the Onchan Wetlands reserve.By Manx Radio
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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 roughly 20 years later at SL-1. We’ll get a (basic!) lesson in nuclear physics from scientists, and explor…
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Jackie and Graham Hall from MBSW and Manx Whale and Dolphin Watch's Jen Adams and Bryony Manley talk to Howard as the MBSW scheme comes to and end - but sighting records continue via MWDW.By Manx Radio
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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 intrigued by the possibilities of an atomic future, especially at a time when we need clean energy more than…
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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 potential? Are we better at this than we were sixty years ago? And given our nature, are we humans even r…
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They're one of their Isle of Man's best known - and most widely despised - birds. Howard Caine tries to get to the bottom of why herring gulls are so unpopular - and what the future may hold for them.By Manx Radio
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'Oumuamua is long gone—out of sight and almost impossible to reach. The excitement over it generated endless fascination about what (and who) might be out there. Ultimately, that’s what this search for extraterrestrial life represents—a series of questions that don’t have good answers and may never have them, not now, not in another millennia. So w…
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Our views on aliens can often be uplifting, offering a glimpse of a better, technologically-bright future, or a glimmer of hope about our ability to survive. In some cases, our thoughts about them are almost spiritual, as though aliens are divine beings. To understand why, we make a trip to Colorado’s UFO Watchtower, which has become something of a…
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American culture is saturated with extraterrestrial and UFO references—and we still can’t get enough. Hollywood has raked in billions on alien-themed programming and it comes in every flavor you can imagine—from horror to camp to science fiction to documentary. What’s the cultural appeal? Why aliens as opposed to any other topic? How have these ima…
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We’ve been broadcasting our presence for about 85 years now, with radio, television, and radar, essentially spamming space with all kinds of messages. What would we do if someone answers back? What if our message reaches someone, or something, hostile? Others argue that we should be trying to communicate with whoever might be out there. But who sho…
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To really look for intelligent extraterrestrial life, say scientists, we have to look way far out into space. A new set of initiatives—the Breakthrough Initiatives—are experimenting with cutting-edge technology to do just that. These new ideas, funded by private industry instead of the government, are the future of the search for extraterrestrial i…
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In 2017, the nation’s prominent newspapers published outlandish-sounding stories about a secret UFO program run by the Pentagon. We talk to retired Navy pilot Ryan Graves who recalls seeing some weird objects and speak with Luis Elizondo, who supposedly ran this Pentagon program. What was the military looking for? What did they find? And what are t…
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For all the people who think there’s life somewhere out there in space, there are also those who think the best place to look for it is closer to home. Thousands of people claim to have seen UFOs or have had alien encounters and one of those most famous of these happened in 1947 in the desert outside Roswell, New Mexico. *Become a premium subscribe…
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What’s the actual likelihood of extraterrestrial life? Especially intelligent life? 60 years ago, astronomer Frank Drake took a crack at calculating those odds and his famous Drake Equation still resonates with scientists and UFO enthusiasts alike. We breaks down the equation for us, piece by piece, and talks about the chance of finding something a…
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We’re surrounded by life here on Earth—and given how huge the galaxy is, it’s got to be out there on other planets, too, right? But where to look? What to look for? And would life on other planets be anything like life here? It turns out that while we know a lot about life on this planet—like what it needs to survive—we’ve still got a lot to learn.…
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'Oumuamua almost slipped past Earth before an astronomer caught sight of this weird object. What was it? Some scientists thought it was just a comet; others, like Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, theorized it could be an alien spacecraft. And why not? While tabloid aliens elicit giggles, loads of serious scientists, statesmen, and even members of the m…
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Back for its second season, Wild Thing: Space Invaders turns our eyes skyward in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Coming September 17, 2020.
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Introducing Searching for Wild Thing! This is the first episode of a kid-friendly version of Wild Thing that host Laura Krantz made in collaboration with Pinna, an ad-free, kidSAFE-certified, audio streaming service developed exclusively for kids, ages 3-12. Listen to this first episode of the ten-part series and, if you like what you hear, you can…
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Aaron and Howard sit down with Tim Graham, Dawn Dickens and Graham Makepeace-Warne of the Manx Wildlife Trust to discuss how natural spaces can benefit our health and well-being.By Manx Radio
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Join Howard and Aaron on the guided tour of Glen Elfin above the Ramsey Hairpin, with botanist, ecologist and general wildlife encyclopedia Andre Dubbeldam.By Manx Radio
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Bigfoot researchers remain optimistic that Sasquatch is out there; that the creature will one day be found. Why? Why do people continue to believe? We’ll talk to professional skeptic Michael Shermer about the nature of belief. And we’ll look at why—even for those who think Bigfoot is a complete myth—the idea of Bigfoot holds so much appeal. What ma…
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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 are those who see Sasquatch as a real cash cow. A Cash-squatch. We’ll sit down with CEOs and creative direc…
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Bigfoot can be tongue-in-cheek fun - but what happens if you take it seriously? There are the people who’ve risked their professional careers and personal reputations, and expended a lot of time, money and energy seeking out Sasquatch. We’ll attend an exclusive symposium, for the crème de la crème of Bigfoot researchers, and hear from many who’ve b…
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Episode 8: Interview with Tra'Shell "DJ Bombshell" Brown, Kentucky's #1 DJ
27:23
27:23
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In this episode, we chat with Tra'Shelle "DJ Bombshell" Brown, Kentucky's #1 Female DJ!! Tune in as she shares about her journey as a creative entrepreneur balancing the male-dominant music industry and motherhood! That's what I call true legacy lifestyle! Connect with Tra'Shelle Brown at: FB: https://www.facebook.com/trashelle.brown Instagram: @dj…
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