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19th-century Harvard students needed botanical models. They turned to a pair of glass artists who specialized in invertebrate zoology. The results, on display at the Corning Museum of Glass this summer, are so lifelike that they've inspired poets and novelists.

Hollywood puts the planet in peril again with Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer. The comics were hip enough to last for more than 40 years, but the movie treatment is far from must-see cinema.

A new animated series on Comedy Central, Lil' Bush, premieres Wednesday night. The show re-imagines the Bush administration as elementary school classmates.

Ryan Cochran-Siegle's Vermont family has sent six athletes to the Winter Olympics. His mom, Barbara Cochran, won gold in Sapporo, Japan, as an alpine ski racer in 1972.

Director Brad Bird and actor Patton Oswalt talk about their film Ratatouille. The animated feature tells the story of a foodie rat who becomes a chef in a top Paris kitchen. Bird previously directed and wrote The Incredibles and The Iron Giant. Oswalt is a writer and stand-up comedian.

Emmy Award winner Brian Cox's latest show is the HBO series Deadwood, whose third season is now out on DVD. This interview first aired on June 26, 2006.

Michael Moore is known for causing corporations and public officials some discomfort in documentaries such as Roger and Me and Fahrenheit 9/11. In his latest picture, Sicko, he casts a critical look at the U.S. health care system.

You Kill Me, a new mob comedy starring Ben Kingsley, centers on a hit man with substance-abuse problems — who hopes Alcoholics Anonymous can help him get back on the job.

Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, aka the folk-parody band Flight of the Conchords, hail from New Zealand and were named best alternative-comedy act at the 2005 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival. Now they're starring in an HBO series called, yes, Flight of the Conchords — which is, yes, about two transplanted New Zealanders living in New York City's Lower East side. It launches Sunday.

In his new novel, Falling Man, Don DeLillo, one of the most admired American writers, squarely faces the awful events of Sept. 11, 2001, with eyes wide open. DeLillo narrates the viewpoints of a number of people — including one of the hijackers — in prose both exquisite and exhausting.

Actor Isaiah Washington will not be invited by ABC to return for another season of the hit program Grey's Anatomy, where he plays Dr. Preston Burke. This, after he reportedly used an anti-gay slur toward one of his cast-mates. Not everyone supports his firing, including two gay activists.

Judd Apatow worked on the cult-favorite TV comedy Freaks and Geeks, but you'll know him as writer-director of The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Now he's back with Knocked Up; we talk to Apatow and to Knocked Up star Seth Rogen.

Easygoing dialogue, a relaxed message: Wave-riding penguin mockumentary Surf's Up is PG-gentle, sweet, and laid-back like no kid flick you'll remember.

Larry Wilmore, jokingly billed as "Senior Black Correspondent" on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, worked as a writer on In Living Color and The PJ's before getting his fake-news-show gig. He also created The Bernie Mac Show.

David Chase, creator and executive producer of the HBO hit series The Sopranos, reflects on America's favorite mob family. The final episode in the show's seven-year run will air this Sunday night. This episode originally aired on June 22, 2000.

On TV's Rescue Me, the comic, actor and writer Denis Leary plays a highly strung, highly macho fireman Tommy Gavin, who deals with raging fires and his own raging male ego. Season 4 starts next week on the FX network.

Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin) is king of the dirty-minded-but-sweet relationship comedy, and the chemistry in his latest makes for a screwball movie with a pretty big heart.

Sarah Polley's debut film is a generous, deceptively simple portrait, simply brought to life: Gordon Pinsent's Grant is gruff and bearish, Julie Christie's Fiona gorgeous and exquisitely blank. (Recommended)

Virginia filmmaker Tom Davenport is best known for his movie adaptations of Brothers Grimm fairy tales — set in Appalachia. Now he spends much of his time making sure people see the work of other filmmakers. His Folkstreams.net is an online archive for documentaries on a range of folk culture, virtually all of them impossible to find anywhere else.

Bug, the new psychological thriller from Exorcist director William Friedkin, got its start as a paranoia-driven stage play by actor-writer Tracy Letts. The film version features Ashley Judd as well as Michael Shannon, who starred in the Off-Broadway production.

The Van Cliburn Foundation's Fifth annual International Competition for Outstanding Amateurs is underway this week. NPR's John Ydstie talks to one of the semifinalists, 46-year-old Greg Fisher, a former child prodigy who has worked at his family's glass and mirror installation company in Edmond, Okla., for the past 30 years.

Lee Atwater, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, is remembered for being a ruthless political operative. But in a new documentary about Atwater's controversial life and legacy, filmmaker Stefan Forbes shows that despite his reputation as "Darth Vader," Atwater won the respect of many, including political enemies.

Why on Earth are Monk and The Amazing Race set to make Emmy history? Forget who we think should win Sunday. TV critic Andrew Wallenstein lists the nominees whose victories would be "criminal." Even darling 30 Rock comes under Wallenstein's fire.

A building heralded as the greenest museum in the world opens Saturday in San Francisco. Italian architect Renzo Piano tucked the building into the hills of Golden Gate Park — in both form and function, the museum fits into the natural world surrounding it.

Fort Ticonderoga, in upstate New York, saw bloody action in the French and Indian Wars and the Revolutionary Wars But now the privately owned museum and battleground is fighting for its own existence. The fort could be forced to shut down or sell off key artifacts.