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Jazz multi-instrumentalist Sam Rivers, who died at 88 in December 2011, recorded with many trios in the 1970s. But his most celebrated trio was barely recorded at all. In 2007, it played a reunion concert — its first in 26 years.

Fiona Ritchie handpicks more of the best new sounds from rising artists along with the latest from artists whose music has shaped the sound of Thistle And Shamrock.

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Spend a little time where seniors hang out and there's a good chance you'll hear about somebody getting a new knee — maybe two.

Some figures pulled from Medicare data analyzed in the latest JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, help explain why.

There are about 600,000 knee replacements a year now, at a cost of around $15,000 a piece. All told, the tab for all that orthopedic work is about $9 billion a year, the JAMA study says.

Reinforcing some things you might have suspected, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism and Internet & American Life Project, along with the Knight Foundation, report today that a national telephone survey of adults finds:

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CELESTE HEADLEE, HOST:

This is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. I'm Celeste Headlee. Michel Martin is away. On television and in movies, the emergency rooms of big city hospitals are places of high drama, with doctors working furiously to save gunshot victims, those hurt in car accidents and people who are suffering a medical crisis, like a heart attack.

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We just talked about the changing demographics in this country. In fact, the Pew Research Center says Latinos will make up more than a quarter of the U.S. population by the year 2050. So we talked about how that might affect our public schools, but there's another group that's paying very close attention to these changes, and that's librarians.

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CELESTE HEADLEE, HOST:

This is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. I'm Celeste Headlee. Michel Martin is away. Coming up, a new documentary follows a harrowing day in an Oakland, California emergency room, where the policy questions about health care play out in real life. We talk with the director of "The Waiting Room." That's in just a few minutes.

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CELESTE HEADLEE, HOST:

This is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. I'm Celeste Headlee. Michel Martin is away. Coming up, it's been nearly 60 years since public schools were legally desegregated, but new research shows schools are still divided. That's in just a few minutes.

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And now it's time for our regular feature, called In Your Ear. It's where we ask some of our guests to share their personal playlists with us. Zach Wahls made headlines when he stood before Iowa lawmakers urging them not to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Wahl spoke up because his parents are lesbians. He stopped by our studios earlier this year to discusses his book, "My Two Moms: Lessons of Love, Strength and What Makes a Family." And he also took the time out to share some of the songs he loves to hear.

In the fairy-tale world, a shiny red apple can lead to a poisonous end. But some see two genetically engineered green apple varieties, poised to become the first to gain U.S. Department of Agriculture approval, as similar harbingers of doom.