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Dancing with the Stars season 17 contestant Bill Nye was eliminated during the third week because of an injury that still bothers him now, a year and a half later, but he definitely would return to the ABC show.

The day he was promoting his appearance on National Geographic Channel’s American Genius, on which he’s a talking head discussing famous rivalries, he told me that he was having dinner with his partner from the show, Tyne Stecklein, that night. “You just become friends; you spend so much freakin’ time,” he said. (The season 17 cast was one of DWTS’ best.)

“The injury is still not all the way done. If I go up steps two at a time, after a few, like the subway in New York, if I go up those steep steps, I can still feel it,” he said. Nye underwent “all kinds of rehab. Did not need surgery. The guy said it was 80, maybe 90 percent tear.”

Despite that, Dancing with the Stars’ Bill Nye told me, “I’d go back in a second. I’d get up from this table and go back. It’s the coolest thing.” But: “I would not do those deep knee things. We would just dance around that, if you will. Too many deep knee rehearsals caught up with me. It was cool, though.”

Nye has recently written a book on evolution and has talks openly about climate change. He also told me that he hopes Disney will eventually release The Soundtrack of Science from Bill Nye The Science Guy.