Segments by Date

Science writer Susan Freinkel chronicles the rise of plastic in consumer culture — and its effects on the environment and our health — in Plastic: A Toxic Love Story. Freinkel says plastics leach potentially harmful chemicals into our bloodstream — and that scientists are now figuring out what that does to our bodies.

In 1927 and '28, Ralph Peer, a talent scout for the Victor Talking Machine Company, set up recording sessions in a town straddling the Tennessee-Virginia border. The resulting sessions, rock critic Ed Ward says, laid the framework for all of country music.

From 1950 until he died in an auto accident in 1962, Ernie Kovacs created some of the most inventive and unusual television ever made. A new box set collects more than 13 hours of the TV pioneer's best and rarest programs. TV critic David Bianculli says it's "a mandatory purchase for anyone who loves TV."

Jon Sarkin was working as a chiropractor when he suffered a massive stroke. Afterwards, he became an obsessive visual artist whose work was as fragmented and cluttered as his mind had become. Sarkin is the subject of a new book, Shadows Bright as Glass, by science writer Amy Nutt.

Diamond has sold 128 million records and written and recorded 37 Top 40 songs. But in the early 1960s, rock historian Ed Ward says, Diamond was writing songs for other musicians while struggling to get his own career off the ground.

New York Times investigative journalist Walt Bogdanich discusses his ongoing series on mistakes made during radiation treatments. He also details what a patient should always ask before receiving an type of X-ray, scan or radiation treatment.

Robert Redford's historical drama focuses on the months after President Lincoln was assassinated — and on Mary Surratt, the woman alleged to have aided the plotters. Critic David Edelstein says it's a dramatized civil-liberties lecture, both transparent and exaggerated.

Fresh Air remembers director Sidney Lumet — who died Saturday at age 86 — with excerpts from a 1988 interview. One of Hollywood's most prolific directors, Lumet created more than 40 films, including Network, Serpico, Fail-Safe, Dog Day Afternoon, The Wiz, The Verdict and Prince of the City.

Michelle Williams plays settler Emily Tetherow in Kelly Reichardt's frontier drama Meek's Cutoff. Both Williams and Reichardt join Fresh Air's Terry Gross for a discussion about the film, which was shot with exquisite landscapes and virtually no dialogue.

Collins was the leader of the 1980s post-punk band Orange Juice. In 2005, he had two cerebral hemorrhages and doubted whether he'd ever make music again. But now he's back with his seventh solo album, Losing Sleep, which Ken Tucker says addresses the singer's past with "bracing clarity."

Tuesday marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the U.S. Civil War. Historian Adam Goodheart explains how national leaders and ordinary citizens across the country responded to the chaos and uncertainty in 1861: The Civil War Awakening.

Investigative reporter Charles Fishman says the past 100 years have been the golden age of water in the developed world — but now that's about to change. He profiles communities grappling with water shortages and details the efforts to conserve water in The Big Thirst.

The Smithereens' music contains touches of The Beatles and Buddy Holly, with a hint of metal and prog-rock. Rock critic Ken Tucker says the new Smithereens 2011 is fresh, joyous and as "neurotically rich as a David Lynch film."

James Franco and Danny McBride set off on a quest in David Gordon Green's action comedy Your Highness — a sword-and-sorcery spoof that David Edelstein says is fantastic if you're in the right gross-minded juvenile mood.

After 34 years, the British miniseries Upstairs, Downstairs will return to PBS on Sunday. TV critic David Bianculli says the surprisingly fresh yet faithful sequel was worth the wait — but now he wants more.

Singer-songwriter Brian Carpenter has cited places like Coney Island and the Florida Panhandle as inspiration for his work. On his latest album, Hothouse Stomp, Carpenter musically travels back to the jazz scene in 1920s Harlem and Chicago.

In Sex, Drugs, and Sea Slime: The Oceans' Oddest Creatures and Why They Matter, underwater researcher Ellen Prager describes some of the craziest activities that help ocean creatures stay alive, fight predators, find food and reproduce.

New Yorker writer Dexter Filkins recently returned from Yemen, where he met with demonstrators who have called for President Ali Abdullah Saleh's immediate resignation. Filkins explains why Yemen's uprisings are particularly worrisome for U.S. counterterrorism officials.

A blockbuster Korean novel has just been translated into English, in which a mother from the country goes missing in Seoul. Fresh Air's Maureen Corrigan says the book delves deeply into traditional values, putting the mother's melancholy squarely on the shoulders of her grown (unappreciative) children.