Author's note -- Introduction: The curious case of the n-rays, a dead end for all times -- Cry for me, Argentina -- AFP-67 in the Dawson Forest -- Inside cold fusion -- Good news and bad news -- The lost expedition to Mars -- The chic-4 revolution -- Japan's atomic bomb project -- The criminal use of nuclear disintegration -- The threat of the dirty bomb -- A bridge to the stars -- Conclusions

With enthusiasm and witty intelligence, Mahaffey unearths lost reactors on far-flung islands and finds trees that were exposed to active fission--which then changed gender or bloomed in the dead of winter. He explains why we have nuclear submarines but not nuclear aircraft and why cold fusion does not--and cannot--exist. And who knew that radiation-counting was once a fashionable trend? Though parts of our nuclear history might seem like fiction--such as when cowboys got their hands on a reactor--Mahaffey's vivid prose holds the reader in thrall of the infectious energy of scientific curiousity and ingenuity that may hold the key to solving our energy crisis--or even send us to Mars. --