Terry Gross

Writer Julie Fenster. She written a new book about the coincidence and circumstance that led to the first use of ether, making surgery painless for the first time. The breakthru day — known as Ether Day — was Oct. 16, 1846. One of the men behind it was a Boston dentist, William Morton, who was also a conman and an opportunist. Fenster tells the story in her new book, Ether Day: The Strange Tale of America Greatest Medical Discovery and the Haunted Men Who Made it (HarperCollins). Fenster is a columnist for American Heritage and a contributor to the New York Times.

Science and natural history writer Hannah Holmes. Her new book is The Secret Life of Dust: From the Cosmos to the Kitchen Counter, the Big Consequences of Little Things. (John Wiley & Sons) Among the interesting facts youl find in the book is this: within a juice glass sitting in the sun, you would find 25,000 microscopic pieces of dust, at a minimum. Holmes is also a regular contributor to the Discovery Channel Online.

South African journalists Mondli Makhanya talk about race and racism in their country in light of the upcoming U.N. conference on World Racism, which will be held in South Africa. Barrell is editor of Johannesburg Daily Mail & Guardian. Until his appointment as editor last year he was political editor of the M&G. Mondli Makhanya is the Political Editor of the Sunday Times.

Cancer researcher John Mendelsohn, M.D. is the president of the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas. We will talk about new developments in cancer treatment. Mendelsohn created a new cancer drug, known as C225. The drug shows great promise in treating a number of cancers by halting the growth of cancer cells. There has been an explosion in the number of cancer drugs in recent years.

Filmmaker Joseph McCarthy. His new short is “The Brave Man.” It’s a retelling of the Battle of Brooklyn set in modern times. Sixteen red cars (mostly Ford Tauruses) represent the British. The actions of one man, General William Alexander, prevented a British victory that day in 1776. The film stars Graeme Malcolm as Alexander. The low-budget short is still not fully funded. McCarthy is also a creator of corporate promotional films.

Writer Simon Winchester wrote the best seller The Professor and the Madman. His new book is The Map That Changed the World (HarperCollins) about William Smith, an obscure British 19th century engineer obsessed with creating the first geological map. His map, hand-painted in 1815, paved the way for modern geology, but Smith was swindled out of the recognition and profits due him until a nobleman intervened.

An interview with film director Francis Ford Coppola, recorded at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
Film critic Roger Ebert talks with Coppola about the re-edited version of his 1979 epic Apocalypse Now. The new cut includes an additional 49 minutes of material. It is currently showing in New York and L.A., and opens in other cities over the next couple of weeks.

Actor Laurence Fishburne was 15 when he played a young G.I. in Apocalpyse Now. He was also Cowboy Curtis on Pee-wee's Playhouse. His films include Boyz N the Hood, Deep Cover, Searching for Bobby Fisher, What Love Got to Do With It, and The Matrix.

August 4th is the 100th anniversary of Armstrong's birth. The archive contains 5000 photographs, 350 pages of autobiographical manuscripts, 270 sets of band part manuscripts, 650 home-made tape recordings and more. Hear excerpts from the tapes. Director of the Louis Armstrong House & Archives Michael Cogswell is in the process of converting the Louis Armstrong House in Queens, where Louis and his wife Lucille lived for almost thirty years, into a museum and educational center. The House is expected to open in 2002.

A native of Mississippi, Barry Hannah has been writing for over thirty years - short stories, and novels set in the South. His writing is described as intensely personal, frenetic and comic. Truman Capote once called him the maddest writer in the USA His first book, the autobiographical novel Geronimo Rex (published in 1972) won the William Faulkner Prize for writing. He followed that with Airships, a collection of short stories now considered a classic.