Terry Gross

In The Secret History of the War on Cancer, environmental-health expert Devra Davis warns that we're ignoring dozens of cancer-causing chemicals, like asbestos, benzene, vinyl chloride, and dioxin.

She writes that, like the tobacco companies, the chemical industry has managed to obfuscate the carcinogenic dangers of chemical and other toxic waste.

Davis directs the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and teaches epidemiology in the university's public-health graduate program.

Snacking on water beetles in Laos, dining on dog in Korea: Tom Parker Bowles, food writer for Britain's The Mail on Sunday, Night and Day, and Tatler (and son of Prince Charles' wife, Camilla Parker Bowles), has written what he's described as "a travel book about weird food."

It's called The Year of Eating Dangerously: A Global Adventure in Search of Culinary Extremes.

September 11, AIDS, the Holocaust — comic and actress Sarah Silverman has repeatedly proved that practically nothing need be off limits in a joke. Take the title of her Off-Broadway show, which later became a film: Jesus Is Magic. Or the music video, available on her Comedy Central show's blog, of "The Doodie Song."

Silverman has appeared in films including School of Rock and There's Something About Mary and she was a member of the Saturday Night Live ensemble in the early '90s.