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Washburn almost left the U.S. for China, where she'd planned to spend the rest of her days practicing law. As luck would have it, though, her growing fascination with learning the banjo led her to an unlikely recording career. Washburn's new album is titled City of Refuge.

Tuesday night's guest star just wants to have some fun behind the Tiny Desk. She'll revisit her classics and perform new songs from her album Threads.

Hamburg-born Astrid Kirchherr met the Beatles in 1960, before they were famous. She took some of the earliest photographs of the group and was engaged to Stuart Sutcliffe, the Beatles' original bassist, before he died of a brain hemorrhage in 1962.

Instead of adding hot water to brown dust with freeze-dried marshmallows, NPR's Steve Inskeep decided to learn how to do hot chocolate right. Pastry chef David Guas walks Inskeep through his recipe for Mexican hot chocolate, which features vanilla beans, almond extract and cinnamon.

Mad cow disease and related illness are thought to be spread by an infectious protein, not a germ. But some prominent scientists don't agree. NPR's Richard Harris travels to a National Institutes of Health lab in Montana, where a group of scientists have been trying for several decades to get to the bottom of brain-wasting diseases.

When it comes to awards in theater or television or dance or literature, Frank Deford observes, candidates don't worry about losing out because of a personal flaw. Only sports applies that off-the-field standard.

After a tough year for the film industry, we were lucky to still get to see some great movies this year. We talk about the best ones and unpack what we think is ahead in 2021.

As the Earth warms up, rising sea levels will increase the threat of storm surges and flooding. In some places, that will make exisiting problems worse. Venice, Italy, offers a glimpse at what may lie ahead. A major engineering project aims to protect it from the rising sea, but most Venetians seem to take high water in stride.

The mastermind behind the band Boston isn't just a songwriter — he's also an engineer. Scholz opens his studio to demonstrate how his self-made gear helped create the group's unique sound.

Everything serves the songs here: There's no overplaying, no frills, just great music and a tremendous new artist who sounds thrilled to be playing it.