All upcoming Inside Science: Science Plus programs

Silk, prized for its lightness, luminosity, and beauty is also one of the strongest biological materials known. The technologies it has inspired—from sutures to pharmaceuticals, replacement body parts to holograms—continue to be developed in laboratories around the world. Author Aarathi Prasad outlines the cultural and scientific history of the fabric including its origins, the ancient silk routes, and its future as a powerful resource.

The earliest known copy of work by Archimedes. Gutenberg and other early Bibles and Muslim manuscripts. Historical astronomical plates. All these historical objects have been digitized by Michael B. Toth, president of R. B. Toth Associates, and his colleagues in humanities and science. Toth discusses ongoing work on historic objects and offers examples of texts and objects that have been digitized using the latest advanced imaging systems.

Looking at the shared pasts of literature and computer science, former Microsoft engineer and professor of comparative literature Dennis Yi Tenen provides a context for recent developments in artificial intelligence. Rather than a magical genie capable of self-directed thought or action, Yi Tenen draws on labor history, technology, and philosophy to examine why he views AI as a reflection of the long-standing cooperation between authors and engineers.

Throughout history, the creation of books involved a wide variety of materials from the natural world, including unusual ones such as wasps and seaweed. The “Nature of the Book” exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History, assembled by the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, shows what the use of these materials can tell us about books, touching on questions of purpose, process, global trade, and economy. Curators Katie Wagner and Vanessa Haight Smith discuss their process and research.

Robots have enabled us to explore dark ocean depths and the surface of Mars. Though robots can mimic a great deal, they cannot replicate care says pioneering roboticist and computer scientist Daniela Rus: They lack heart. She offers a reframed perspective on the way we think about intelligent machines and weighs the moral and ethical consequences of their role in society.