Swine Flu: What to Expect

Listen
An expected lull in H1N1 Flu didn’t materialize this summer and some authorities predict that there won’t be enough vaccines to go around this fall. Infectious disease expert Dr. William Schaffner tells us how to stay well this fall.

• More from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Homeless Heroin Addicts

Listen
For more than a decade, an anthropologist and a photographer documented the lives of several homeless heroin addicts in San Francisco. Their stories are told in the book, “Righteous Dopefiend.” Phillippe Bourgois explains how they make ends meet — and how they live in encampments in full sight of society. Bourgois is professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania; Jeff Schonberg is the photographer.

Rain Disaster in Sri Lanka

Listen
The civil war may be over on the island of Sri Lanka, but the suffering is not. Heavy rains have destroyed or damaged hundreds of shelters for the nearly 300,000 ethnic Tamils displaced by the fighting. The minority Tamil Tiger rebels waged a 25-year campaign for a homeland against the majority Sinhalese but were defeated in May. Human rights groups say Tamil civilians are being detained in refugee camps against their will. The BBC’s Charles Haviland joins us from Colombo.

• U.S. diplomat warns of violence in Sri Lanka

Backward Planets Discovered

Listen
The first two planets to orbit their stars backwards were recently discovered outside the solar system. Joshua Winn, assistant professor of physics at MIT, explains what may have caused these bodies to move in such an unusual orbit.

The Best Year in Filmmaking: 1939 or 1999?

Listen
Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr believes that 1939 was the pinnacle of American studio movies, with such films as “Gone with the Wind”, “Ninotchka”, and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”. His colleague, Wesley Morris, says that 1999’s films caught the anxiety of the upcoming end of the millennium in movies such as “The Matrix”, “The Sixth Sense”, and “The Blair Witch Project”.

• Boston Globe movie blog

Music from the show

• Nathan Milstein, “Bach: Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin”
• Jimi Hendrix, “Crosstown Traffic”
• “Tara’s Theme” from the movie, “Gone With the Wind”
• Rollie Kent, “Election” (selections for the Original Score)
• Art Blakey, “Free For All”