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Slow-cooking expert Stephanie O'Dea shares the story behind her KFC-inspired chicken: It was an attempt to recreate the Colonel's secret recipe so that her daughter, who has celiac disease, could experience a taste most Americans take for granted. In a twist, O'Dea also wanted to cook the chicken in a Crock-Pot.

NPR's Renee Montagne talks to actor, comedian, director, writer, and all-around funny guy Mel Brooks, the man behind Blazing Saddles and Spaceballs. He has a new DVD set out that covers his career from the 1950s to today.

NPR's longest-serving reference librarian, Kee Malesky, is the author of a new book, Learn Something New Every Day: 365 Facts to Fulfill Your Life. Malesky offers facts for each day of the year, from the landing on the moon to the invention of sliced bread.

Aside from urban legends about talking to your flower pots, is there any reason to study the effect of noise on plants? One ecologist says yes — because noise pollution can disrupt the behavior of birds and other animals that plants rely on.

Author Kate Bussmann doesn't turn on the TV when news breaks — she heads for Twitter. Her new book chronicles a year of cultural and political news through the widely used microblogging site.

The Singing Cowboy was one of the country's most popular and prolific film stars during his career; he also gained fame as a radio star, producer and TV personality. Biographer Holly George-Warren traces Autry's lengthy career in Public Cowboy No. 1.

In his new book, Tomatoland, food writer Barry Estabrook details the life of the mass-produced tomato — and the environmental and human costs of the tomato industry. Today's tomatoes, he says, are bred for shipping and not for taste.

Most hospitals don't have a psychiatric unit, which means mentally ill patients often wait in emergency rooms for several days — sometimes even a week or more — before they can be moved to a psychiatric hospital. ERs are the wrong place for someone in the midst of a psychiatric crisis, an expert says.

Forty years ago, freshman Mike Doonesbury met his roommate at Walden College, and since then, the funny pages haven't been the same. Cartoonist Garry Trudeau reflects on the beloved, irreverent strip, which he first sketched as a Yale undergrad in 1970.

The West Virginia coal mine where 25 people were killed in an underground explosion has been cited for serious safety problems several times this year, federal records show. About $1.8 million in penalties have been levied against the mine since 2006, of which the company has paid about $365,000.