“MythBusters” returns to the Discovery Channel at 9 p.m. on Wednesday, September 28 for its eighth season. During the premiere episode “Bikes and Bazookas,” the hosts address the myth that a motorcycle is better for the environment compared to a car. The hosts also release a rocket-propelled grenade to challenge the Hollywood belief that a bullet could take out a RPG.

The series will continue to test common myths such as:

•If it is impossible for people to walk in a straight line (without a point of reference)
•If a Newton’s Cradle can be enlarged to gigantic proportions
•If a car hanging off the side of a cliff will fall completely off if a pigeon lands on the roof
•If the “flying guillotine” is an actual ancient weapon or if it was made up

Hosts Jamie Hyneman, Adam Savage, Tory Belleci, Kari Byron and Grant Imahara will all return this season and the show will have a new theme song by The Dandy Warhols.

Fresh off its third consecutive Emmy nomination, “Mythbusters” is back for more as the hit show returns for its fall season of Wednesdays at 9 p.m., starting September 28, Discovery Channel said Monday.

Blast interviewed hosts Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage last year.

Fall 2011 myths will include:

• Is it impossible for humans (without a point of reference) to walk in a straight line?
• Are motorcycles better for the environment than cars?
• Can you supersize a Newton’s Cradle to epic proportions?
• If a pigeon lands on the roof of a car, which is hanging precariously over a cliff’s edge, could it provide enough force to send the car plunging over the side?
• In a standoff between a hero with a revolver and a villain with a rocket propelled grenade (as seen in the movie Red), could the bullet trigger the warhead? And would the villain be taken out by the blast?
• Was the “flying guillotine” a lethal ancient weapon — or kung-fu make believe?
• Can you use duct tape to fix a plane that has been mauled by a bear? (As odd as this one sounds, it’s a story that has inundated our fan site message boards for years!)
• Could a methane blast inside a sewer, blow manhole covers tens of feet into the air?
• Some call it indestructible, but can truck bed liners stop an animal attack? Prevent a car from being damaged? Make it bomb-proof?
• A behind-the-scenes look at the special locations MYTHBUSTERS use to in their myth-busting tests, from Alameda to Africa and from the desert to the deep blue sea.
• Explosions. Rocket sleds. More duct tape. Oh… and more explosions!

Ever wonder if throwing knives can bounce? If riot shields can protect you from falling supply crates? Or if exploding fire hydrants can kill?

There’s only one way to find out. Put these myths to the test!

From the team that brought you Halo 3: Mythbusters, comes Episode 1 of Modern Warfare 2 Mythbusters. It’s quite an entertaining video, and makes me want to jump back in and try these things.

Manning the post as the only on-screen female MythBuster, Kari Byron is doing more than just solving burning questions of curious viewers around the world. A newly wed wife and mother of a newborn baby, Byron has traveled near and far solving the most controversial myths and loving every minute of it.

A San Francisco native, Byron, 34, ended up on the show as somewhat of an accident. Interning for M5 Industries, Kari was first utilized for her "behind” for an early episode about a woman getting stuck on an airplane toilet. Since then, she has shown off more than just her romper with risqu© photos in FHM Magazine, becoming one of the most fantasized about engineers of all time.

BLAST: Can you describe your first TV show experience?

KARI BYRON: I was in kindergarten, I Was on the news. In kindergarten I had this crazy teacher, Mrs. Peck. Crazy and most amazing classroom she got to play Mother Nature in our school play. Other than that, pretty much “Mythbusters” is it.

BLAST: How long have you been on the “Mythbusters?”

KB: Pretty much since it started. I wanted to try to get into special effects and I love sculpture, so I wanted to apply it and actually make some money out of it other than in the arts. And so I came to Jamie in the shop, M5 Industries and asked for an internship. Got an internship with Jamie, and it turns out my first day as an intern was the first day Mythbusters started filming there. They had a little project that they needed a girl for. He did this story called airplane toilet where a larger woman was using an airplane toilet and flushed before standing up and got sucked into it. That’s the myth at least. They needed to make a mold of a behind for the experiment and I just happened to let them volunteer mine. It was sort of a trade off. They did a 3D scan of mine and I was able to work on it on a computer sculpturing software so I could learn the program. I thought no one would see this because it was just a silly little cable show. Didn’t know it would end up being the first thing you see when you Google my name six years later.

BLAST: “Mythbusters” is really growing. It’s everywhere.

KB: I know. It is in almost every country and everywhere we go. My uncle has said it’s been translated in Spanish, Chinese and seen as far as Costa Rica. I get emails from everywhere from Prague to Botswana.

BLAST: Do people come up to you randomly on the street and ask you ridiculous questions expecting you to know the answer?

KB: Absolutely, every single time. They come up to all of us. The cool thing about this job is we get to take on these little strange questions and investigate them to the fullest extent. We have 4-5 researchers who work around the clock on these weird stories. You should really hear some of their phone calls. They get to call people and ask, “So where can I find a full size engine we can throw a hand into,” or “where can I find a stomach with all the acids still in it.” I got lucky, I get to be on the end with all the hands on fun stuff.

BLAST Who’s idea was it to build a cannon out of duct tape?

KB: That one we actually found through the viewers website. We have discovery.com/mythbusters, where we have a message board where you can send in your ideas, or if you’ve read something in a history book that sounds totally absurd, and you want to see if its true. You give us the myth ideas, and then they might just make it on the show. So since we had so many people send us myths about duct tape, we decided to just got for it. We just picked out a few that we liked. It was so popular, that that’s one that people keep stopping me on the street to tell me new ideas about. And in fact, it was so popular that we might be doing a Duct Tape 2 episode in the future. We were so excited to do these, they were so great.

BLAST: What is the step by step process of a myth getting onto the show?

KB: Well, you know its kind of a random mix of when we can do these, how easily we can do them and even the weather. We find different myths from us scouring the internet, people submitting ideas on the message boards, talking to us on the street, and viewers sending in stuff. We also have a master list we have been building since Mythbusters inception in 2003. We have a lot to pick from. If it just so happens that we have access to a huge wind machine, we might just do something with hurricanes. It’s really just depends on what were interested in and how easy it is to do. We also look at what is going on in the media at that time, for instance, balloon boy. If we decided to do that, we might do it sooner than later. Then we break it apart to see what the process is to do it. Then we have a story meeting that breaks it down and we figure out the process using the scientific method as our outline: how we will go through the process itself. Then we break up the projects, film it, and then it goes into editing. It usually takes between 3 and 6 months before the show goes to air.

BLAST: Is there a lot of editing that goes into it?

KB: Oh yea. Well, we can’t fake anything. We don’t have a huge staff of people that come in and do all the work for us. We are basically doing it with minimal help. We aren’t faking the science. If it takes three days to come up with a number to calibrate a cannon; it takes three days. You guys get to see the ten-seconds it gets edited down to when it might have taken 100 hours to film.

Its funny, I almost feel stronger, more organized. I sweat the small stuff less. You don’t have time for wasting time. It’s a full day. You wake up in the morning, take care of baby, go to work, take care of Mythbusters, go home, take care of baby. Every minute is accounted for. It’s so much more fun and fulfilling and I just don’t waste time anymore. Going back to work, is kind of fun. At home I am taking care of baby and of mom, but at work, I am taking care of Kari. It is really fulfilling to be a mom. It is hard work but it is so worth it. I have the support of my husband and my girlfriend who takes care of my baby when I am at work.

BLAST: How is married life?

KB: Oh rad. I have the most adorable husband ever.

BLAST: Does he watch you on TV and is just shocked that you get to do what most boys would love to do?

KB: I don’t know, half the stuff I do, he’s like “I cant believe you even wanted to do that stuff, that’s nuts! He is a little bit of an adventurer himself. He does all sorts of things that boys want to do as well. He races motorcycles and is a tattoo artist and is just generally a bad-ass.

BLAST: Are there any myths you really want to bust that haven’t been on the show?

KB: Upside down race cars. That is something we would all just love to do. It is basically that the race car can move so fast and have so much downwind force that it can drive upside down on the track. All we need is a track and a Formula 1 race car, which you know, we can’t find anyone who wants to lend us one. So unless we can find the budget of $1 million dollars to pay for one, we have to wait to do that one. It’s not impossible its just expensive.

BLAST: Are most things really expensive?

KB: The amazing part of our support structure here at “Mythbusters” is they can get so much stuff for free, or for trade or for the most minute amount of money. They are wheelers and dealers. Since the show is getting more popular, people have been offering us stuff more and more. We work with bomb squads, police and fire companies. They always help us out a little bit. People call and say, “Hey do you want to blow up our car?” We keep it at a pretty low cost. We have the lowest possible cost because the people we work with are doing a little bit of the hustle for us.

BLAST: What does it feel like being the only girl on the show?

KB: You know I am only the only girl on camera, but off camera we have female researchers, producers and coordinators. There are tons of women. You only see me on screen, but it’s a huge team effort behind the camera, so it doesn’t feel like I am the only girl in any way.

BLAST: What was it like to pose for FHM Magazine?

KB: Now that I had a kid, I am really glad I did it back then. It was really fun and funny because we don’t have makeup and hair on the show, so getting prettied up and getting all that attention was really great. And the pictures weren’t that racy. In fact I think I am wearing less on the shark special.

BLAST: There has been some speculation surrounding your relationship with one of your co-build team members Tory Belleci. Is there any relationship other than strictly a professional one?

KB: No. My husband was my boyfriend starting on the show. Tory and I never had any relationship other than a friendship. It’s more of a sibling relationship, we pick on each other a lot. I think the reason the show has been so successful is that we all have a natural chemistry. We weren’t cast, we are all just real people who have worked on screen before. All the boys worked either at ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) or at Jamie’s shop and they all knew each other previous to this. It makes the day better.

BLAST: Do you have any parting words of wisdom?

KB: Don’t have time to waste time.

Kari has solved myths from duct tape cannons to a shark’s sense of smell. You can catch her on “Mythbusters” every Wednesday at 9 p.m. on the Discovery Channel.

Two of cable’s heavy hitters premiere tonight. Discovery Channel starts a new season of “Mythbusters” at 9 p.m., and Comedy Central has “South Park” at 10. Comedy Central also has “Secret Girlfriend’” at 10:30.

Investigation Discovery (for those of you who have it) has “The Bureau” about the FBI’s top cases, starting up at 9 p.m.

CBS will renew “Flashpoint” for at least 13 more episodes later this season. The Canadian import about a police “Strategic Response Unit” has been a rating success so far.

Bravo is expanding its “Real Housewives” brand with “The Real Housewives of D.C.” The cable network also renewed “New Jersey” for a second season.

“Curb Your Enthusiasm” had its best numbers in five on-and-off years on Sunday night, with 1.6 million total viewers at 10 p.m. for the “Seinfeld” reunion.

But the biggest news so far is this: “Monday Night Football” with the Vikings versus Packers gave ESPN the largest audience in the history of cable television and ESPN’s own best ranking in its history, attracting a 15.3 rating, or 21.8 million total viewers. It’s just a ridiculous number, as Brett Favre facing his old team boosted the game to a whole new level.

Meet up with Jamie, Adam, Tory, Kari and Grant in the Mythbusters Season 4 DVD.

The collection has all 30-episodes on 6 discs, giving you almost 19 hours of one of the best programs on television.

Discovery put out the entire fourth season “as they debunk, decode and demystify some of the most popular urban myths and legends. Using modern-day science, they put each myth to the test — from concrete gliders to anti-gravity devices — separating the real from the really out there,” they said recently.

They don’t just tell myths, they put them to the test. Watch for Earthquake Machine, which ends with some really surprising results. Also, Killer Cable Snaps ends by disproving that a tension cable snapping away will cut a man in half. They also revisit several myths that viewers questioned the results of.

This one is a must have. Mythbusters is one of the most popular shows around, and here’s your chance to avoid having to buy them episode-by-episode. Get the whole season in one box.

On that note, I humbly submit this news story that I recently wrote for The Boston Globe.

On December 27, a mobile home trailer exploded in the driveway of a home in Plympton, Mass., sending its occupant flying out through the front door and into the nearby woods. The lucky man was not seriously injured. The explosion was caused when the man, who had no sense of smell from a previous injury, was fixing the heat on the trailer. The trailer filled with gas and exploded.

“His eyebrows were gone and his hair was singed, but he was OK,” fire officials said. The occupant, whom Rich did not identify, refused medical treatment.

There you go, Adam and Jamie!

Episodes include:

• Confederate Rocket
• Vodka Myths
• Steel Toe Amputation
• Seasickness: Kill or Cure
• Paper Crossbow
• Shredded Plane
• Archimedes Death Ray
• Helium Football
• Franklin’s Kite
• Cell Phones on Planes
• Bullets Fired Up
• Myths Reopened
• Mind Control
• Exploding Pants
• Steam Cannon
• Killer Whirlpool
• Crimes and Myth-Demeanors 1
• Crimes and Myth-Demeanors 2
• Shattering Subwoofer
• Deadly Straw
• Earthquake Machine
• Diet Coke and Mentos
• Killer Cable Snaps
• Concrete Glider
• Air Cylinder Rocket
• More Myths Revisited
• Exploding Lighter
• Anti-Gravity Device
• Firearms Folklore
• 22,000-Foot Fall

For some reason, I resisted Deadliest Catch for the first two seasons. I was always tuning to the Discovery Channel for Mythbusters or the odd documentary.

Then one night last year, Mythbusters was over and this Bon Jovi song comes on, and I decide to watch an episode of “the fishing show.” Now I’m hooked.

What really strikes me about Deadliest Catch is that the Discovery folks put in cameras and producers, documentary style, and ended up with better characters and dramatic plots than most of the striking writers could put out.

From Sig Hansen, the third generation Norwegian to salty Alaskan Phil Harris on his boat, the Cornelia Marie, Deadliest Catch is no small achievement.

Watching these fishermen haul 700-pound crab pots from the bottom of the Bering Sea over and over again and watching them deal with everything from legal problems to winter storms, it’s often easy to forget that Deadliest Catch is unscripted. Moreover, it’s easy to forget that any of these people can die — fishermen and producers — at any time.

The reminders come from the solemn episodes where the boats break away from fishing to search for survivors from a vessel sunk by a rogue wave or storm. They rarely find many alive in the frigid waters. This came to life in the first season especially, when one of the featured boats, Big Valley, sunk early on, killing all but one aboard.

The third season starts off with the beginning of the Red King Crab season and disaster as the fishing vessel Ocean Challenger sinks, taking three men with it and showing a dramatic Coast Guard helicopter rescue where one of the crew members is saved.

Season three is contained on five DVD’s with nearly nine hours of footage. I was disappointed by the lack of special features — Discovery did a really good special called “After the Catch” where narrator Mike Rowe shared stories and beers with the captains and crew. That was another amazing part of deadliest catch, bringing narrator and subjects together.

Either way, the DVD set is an excellent gift and a great way to relive Deadliest Catch.

Episodes:

A Tragic Beginning
Journey back to Dutch Harbor, Alaska — the largest fishing port in the United States. The 2006 Red King Crab season kicks off as 81 fishing vessels eagerly return to stake their claim in the million dollar jackpot.

The Unforgiving Sea
After the Ocean Challenger fishing boat sinks, a Coast Guard helicopter rescues the only known survivor. Meanwhile, two bodies are pulled from the water and another man remains lost at sea.

Pain and Paybacks
After a deadly start to the season, the Bering Sea claims more victims. Deckhand Lenny Lakanoff of the Wizard suffers a crippling injury, leaving Captain Keith scrambling to shore.

Cheating Death
Halfway through the season the grind is on with crews working throughout the nights. Equipment failures, fatigue and bad weather make fishing even more dangerous.

Bering Sea Salvation
Experience the heart-wrenching tales of the Bering Sea as Captain Johnathan Hillstrand of the Time Bandit recounts a rescue attempt he made nine years ago that ended in tragedy.

The Last Lap
The grinding 2006 Red King Crab fishing marathon comes to a close as holds fill with King gold. With money in their pockets, the fishermen return home for a short rest before returning to the 2007 Opilio Crab Season.

New Beginnings
All aboard as the January Opilio crab season opens. Several greenhorns are about to experience the subfreezing temperatures and icy winter waters of the Bering Sea for the first time.

Caught in the Storm
Only days into the Opilio season, a major storm system hits the fishing grounds causing Captain Andy of the Time Bandit to call his men off deck.

Crossing the Line
A monster storm blows through the Time Bandit and Cornelia Marie grounds, and a double change of guard takes place on the Wizard as Captain Keith Colburn and greenhorn Nick both head south.

Trials of the Greenhorns
The harsh winter weather puts the greenhorns to the test, but the Northwestern and Cornelia Marie greenhorns step up to prove their worth by working through broken bones and icy decks without complaint.

Ice and Open Water
The promise of a great catch outweighs the dangerous risks faced by the Opilio Crab fishing vessels. The Far West Leader attempts to survive the loss of one engine, while the Time Bandit enjoys unseasonable weather and unprecedented catches.

A Frozen Finish
The 2007 Opilio crab tally is in and a winner is declared. After a long and difficult crab fishing season, the Northwestern enjoys a sweet homecoming with friends and family back in Seattle.