Talk of the Nation

Following several years of decline, home prices are beginning to rebound in many regions of the country. Recent reports show fewer foreclosures in several of the hardest hit states. Many analysts believe it's safe to finally use the word "recovery."

Several colleges and universities have adopted a common read program, where freshmen read the same book during the summer and discuss it once on campus.

Author Max Brooks' World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is one of the less traditional books appearing on required reading lists. The book captures scenes from a global zombie apocalypse through a series of first-person accounts.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. In a few days, my next guest will be in Florida. He's going there to testify against Big Tobacco in a lawsuit brought by a smoker with health problems. Oh, you didn't know that tobacco lawsuits like this are still going on today? You certainly don't hear a lot about them in the news. But some 8,000 more cases just like this one exist in Florida alone.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. Consider the shrew, a small harmless, nearly blind animal. If you were to find one scrambling across your kitchen floor, you might shriek or stomp on it. Shrews look a lot like mice. Or you could catch it and release it outside. But what if you ate the shrew, whole, instead? No, you don't debone it. You don't even chew it. You just hack the tail off and swallow it whole. Why? Well, for science, of course.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY, I'm Ira Flatow. Football season is getting into full swing this week: tailgating parties, point spreads, Tim Tebow. But amid all the excitement of a new season comes an old and disturbing ghost. This week, a new study finds that pro football players may be more likely to die from various neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's or ALS, more likely than the rest of us.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

I'm Ira Flatow. This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. We're going to talk now about West Nile virus, it showed up in 48 states, reports in viruses in either people or birds or mosquitoes, and it's not exactly clear just why the virus is so widespread this year or why the state of Texas has been particularly hard-hit.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

Joining us now is Flora Lichtman, our multimedia editor, with our Video Pick this week.

FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: This week, Ira, we're going to the bat cave. Well...

FLATOW: I saw the movie, you know. So not that, not that, I know.

LICHTMAN: Exactly. Another bat cave.

FLATOW: Oh, shucks.

(LAUGHTER)

Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner Kathleen Turner stars in the play Red Hot Patriot. In the one-woman show, Turner plays the sassy newspaper columnist Molly Ivins, whose liberal wit first drew attention during her coverage of the Texas Legislature in the 1970s.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

A rare moment of dissention at the Democratic National Convention. After a routine adoption of the party platform on Tuesday, critics pointed out that the document omitted any mention of the word God and did not identify Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Then yesterday the chair of the platform committee, former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, proposed amendments.

(SOUNDBITE OF CONVENTION)