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MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

And I'm Robert Siegel.

The Detroit Tigers are in the World Series. The St. Louis Cardinals are close. And sportswriter Stefan Fatsis is with us to discuss baseball's playoff season. Hiya, Stefan.

STEFAN FATSIS: Hey, Robert.

By now, it's no surprise that most Latinos plan to vote for President Obama. They are the nation's largest minority group, often likened to a sleeping giant that could decide the outcome in key swing states.

But will enough Latinos show up on Election Day to make good on the prediction?

As many as 60,000 Hispanics reach voting age every month, but Latinos overall have yet to bring their full force to the voting booth. Two-thirds of eligible whites and African-Americans voted in the 2008 presidential election, while barely half of Hispanics cast ballots.

The commander of U.S. Forces Japan apologized and announced that all military personnel in Japan would have to adhere to a night curfew beginning today.

The move comes after two Navy sailors allegedly raped a woman in Okinawa. Like the case in 1995, when three servicemen raped a school girl, opposition to U.S. bases swelled after the arrests.

Matthew Inman, creator of the humor site "The Oatmeal," led an online drive that raised over $1 million for a new museum to honor the inventor Nikola Tesla. Inman discusses how to build a successful crowdfunding campaign, and why Tesla is the greatest geek who ever lived.

A professor spends his off-time tracking the little things in life that bother us. Marc Abrahams, editor of the Annals of Improbable Research, tells us what poor parking, long waits in the doctor's office, and the controversial brussel sprout tell us about science.

As Republican Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois was courting controversy last night by saying during a debate that the "health of the mother" isn't a reason for an abortion anymore, out in Arizona a Democratic candidate for Senate was stepping in it by telling a male debate moderator that "you're prettier" than CNN's Candy Crowley.

In his new book Spillover writer David Quammen traces the evolution of Ebola, HIV and other diseases that moved from animals to humans. Quammen describes how scientists look for the reservoirs of the infectious agents, and what might be done to prevent the next pandemic.

A NASA spacecraft captured the clearest recording yet of what space sounds like inside Earth's radiation belts. Craig Kletzing, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Iowa, explains what causes these eerie chirping noises, and what we can learn from them.

Which comes first, the probiotics or the prebiotics?

Could prebiotics, the food for the good bacteria known as probiotics, have more benefits than a dose of the microbes, particularly for people with serious health problems like preemies?