Listen to the broadcast of February 8, 2009.

Michael Enright, Host

Cate Cochran, Producer

Jean Dalrymple, Producer

Peter Kavanagh, Producer

Andrew Parker, Producer

Mark Ulster, Producer

Brendan Woods, Producer

Karen Levine, Documentary Editor

Marjorie Nichol, Executive Producer

Michael reflects on the late Toronto writer Morley Callaghan.

This month marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin.

Darwin both shocked and thrilled the world - depending on your perspective - with the publication of his seminal work, "The Origin of the Species."

It's a title most people recognize as an important, influential work in the history of the western world. But how many people have actually read it, or understand the debates which have raged, and continue to burn in the years since the book was written?

This week on the show we present "Darwin's Ghost," a collection of interviews, characters, songs, poems and other stimulating bits about the legacy of Charles Darwin. Join us for a debate, discussion and dissection of Darwin.

Brian Alters is Director of Evolution Education Centre at McGill University and the Tomlison Chair in Science Education. He joins us from Montreal.

Ruth Padel is Charles Darwin's great great grandaughter. She is a conservationist, a traveller, a scholar and a poet of some distinction.

The author of seven volumes of poetry and the only fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Zoological Society of London, Padel's most recent book is Darwin: A Life in Poems. This morning she joins us from our studios in London, England.

Professor Kenneth Miller is a cellular biologist at Brown University, a practicing Roman Catholic and author most recently of Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul. He joins us this morning from Providence, Rhode Island.

Adam Gopnik is a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine. He is the author most recently of Angels and Ages: A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln and Modern Life. He joins us this morning from our studios in New York.

In June, 2002, Dr. Wang Bingzhang, a graduate of McGill University and a prominent lung surgeon, was grabbed by armed men while visiting Vietnam, flown to his native China, tried for treason and sentenced to life in prison. Dr. Wang's crime was trying to further the cause of democracy. He is now seven years into that life sentence, and suffering from ill health.

His daughter's name is Ti-anna Wang. She was born in Montreal and until last summer attended McGill. These days, she lives in Washington, D.C., where she's put her studies on hold and is working full time for her father's release. She has been persuasive. Calls for his release have come from Amnesty International, the UN, the European Union and the government of Taiwan. But so far nothing has worked.

This morning Michael will talk with Ti-Anna about her quest to get her father released from a notoriously horrible Chinese prison.

Tens of millions of children are born each year facing a "silent hunger." Namely, a shortage of micronutrients that threaten to diminish their mental and physical capacities. All because of the kind of salt they eat.

For just pennies per person, millions of these kids could be protected from an array of horrible conditions just by adding trace amounts of iodine to table salt. It's cheap, easy to do and its effective. And it's a Canadian organization that's leading the world in this important work.

This morning Michael will talk with Venkatesh Mannar. He's an Ottawa based chemical engineer and food technologist heading up the "Micronutrient Initiative" - a group that's spreading the word - worldwide - about the healing properties of iodized salt.

Some of your mail on two stories from last week's show: voluntourism and violent video games for kids.

Our music guru Robert Harris returns with the sixth installment of 20 Pieces of Music that Changed the World.