Two actors, James Potter and Robert Keller, open this program with a dramatization of an emergency situation in which a child is severely burned far from a treatment center. Dr. Sanford Rosenthal, pharmacologist at the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases in Bethesda, MD, explains the emergency treatment he developed that is recommended in the dramatic scene: one teaspoon of salt plus half teaspoon of baking soda mixed in one quart of cool water and delivered orally to the burn victim at the rate of one quart per twenty pounds of body weight during the first 24 hours and half the amount during the next 24 hours. He explains that since 1942 National Institute of Health (NIH) has studied shock that follows severe injuries such as burns, crushing injuries, and hemorrhage. A film shows the procedure that replicated these types of injuries on female albino mice. Tissue fluid and blood rushing to the wound area result in dehydration, sodium deficiency, and reduced blood volume overall and can be corrected by administering Rosenthal's fluid treatment orally or intravenously. Dr. Kehl Markley, also of NIH, explains a chart comparing the amount of saline treatment to survival rate. He then narrates a film about 1951 experiments with human burn victims in Lima, Peru, where half received saline solution by mouth and half received plasma and glucose by vein. The two groups showed no significant differences after 24 hours, although many burn victims who survive the shock later die from infection. Dr. Markley discusses a chart of burn victims showing the number of deaths/cases of those who received saline, plasma, or both. In conclusion, the Office of Civil Defense Mobilization has recommended emergency use of saline solution for burn shock in case of a major bomb disaster.

Lynn Poole identifies the equipment in Johns Hopkins University's ham radio "shack," (station W3GQF, for students with amateur radio licenses) and shows QSL cards from around the world. A film clip shows the International Geophysical Year Expedition's ham radio shack (KC4USA) in Antarctica. Dr. Edward Krieg, ham radio operator (W3CAY) and surgeon at Bon Secour Hospital in Baltimore, shows a film clip of a ham radio operators' "field day" and explains some of the ham radio lingo, such as "CQ" for hello and "7-3" for goodbye. He notes that some hams specialize in Morse code, a requirement for getting a radio license from the FCC. A film documents the DX (distance expedition) of six ham operators who sail to Navassa Island to set up a ham station (KC4AF) there. During the four days on the island, they made over 7,000 contacts in 75 different countries before going QRT (off the air). Another film shows the amateur ham operators' free emergency network to assist disaster organizations. Sam Harris' Rhododendron Swamp VHF Society of amateur ham experimenters is featured in another film clip. Perry Klein, a teenager credited with bouncing a signal off an artificial satellite, explains how he did it and plays a recording of the signal. He calls this form of communication "high frequency satellite scatter" or "satellite bounce." Klein recommends to viewers the book "How to Become a Radio Amateur." A film clip shows Joe Pratt, a homebound polio victim in Baltimore, MD, using his ham radio to make friends. Dr. Krieg concludes the program by promoting the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) and their publication "QST."

Actor Joseph Potter, impersonating H.L. Mencken, opens this show on the "Sage of Baltimore," and quotes him throughout the program. Lynn Poole gives a pictorial account of Mencken's early life. Dr. Carl Bode, University of Maryland English professor, discusses Mencken as a critic of literature, society, and politics. He points out Mencken's contentiousness in his writing, especially in political criticism, such as his comments in 1912 on Baltimore mayor James H. Preston. Although Mencken stood up for New Realists such as Dreiser and Hemingway, he disliked the pretentiousness of many authors of his day and spoke out against bestsellers with no literary merit. With Mr. Potter's assistance, Dr. Bode describes events in Mencken's career as editor and columnist with "The Baltimore Sun" newspaper, co-editor with George Jean Nathan of "The Smart Set," editor and writer for "The American Mercury," and author of numerous books, such as "George Bernard Shaw" and "The American Language." Mr. Potter dramatizes a portion of Mencken's obituary for William Jennings Bryan, written after Bryan's death following the 1925 Scopes Trial. In 1926 the Watch and Ward Society of Boston forced off the newsstands Mencken's controversial "Hatrack" story in "The American Mercury," but Mencken prevailed. However, his unchanging views became trivial when he failed to recognize and understand the grave implications of the Great Depression or Hitler. Johns Hopkins professor emeritus Kemp Malone discusses Mencken's book "The American Language," which posits that American English was so different from British English that it should have a separate name. As an amateur philologist, Mencken also launched "American Speech," a learned journal, although he considered himself "a scout for scholars," not a scholar himself. In conclusion, Lynn Poole recommends Mencken's "A Carnival of Buncombe" for additional reading.

Actors Joseph Potter, Bob McGill, Walter Koehler, Harry Welker, and Harry Weiss dramatize the trial of Socrates Aeropagus in 399 BC. The seventy year old Athenian philosopher is under attack as a sophist and faces the Tribunal. Lynn Poole, as "chorus," intersperses descriptions of Athens, its religion, courts, and history with scenes played by costumed actors. Libelled by Aristophanes' comedy "The Clouds" and accused by the poet Meletus of impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens, Socrates eloquently counters the accusations only to be voted guilty by the jury. He abides by the death penalty and prophesies that punishment will fall upon both his supporters and accusers for not examining their lives and living righteously.

Johns Hopkins University faculty member Elliott Coleman reads from his poetic works: "Spring on the Estuary," "Joyce's Grave," "Letter to Pierre Emmanuel," "Sonnets on the Roman Light," and "Aubade for Josephine Jacobsen." Poetry consultant to the Library of Congress Josephine Jacobsen reads the following of her poems: "Topic of Advent," "The Animals," "The Danish Mobile," "Painter in Xyochtl," and "The Stranger and Corrigan."

Members of the Baltimore Woodwinds, first chair or principle players with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, open the program playing the finale of "Quintet in E-flat major" by Anton Reicha. Lynn Poole describes the history of woodwind music and introduces the players: Britton Johnson on flute, Wayne Rapier on oboe, Robert Pierce on French horn, Stanley Petrulis on bassoon, and Ignatius Gennusa on clarinet. The quintet plays two movements of Vivaldi's "Sonata in G minor" and continues with "Pastoral," by modern composer Vincent Persichetti. Last in their repertoire are three short pieces for woodwind composed by Jacques Ibert.

The program opens with drawings of early, primitive underwater vessels and segues into a film of swimmers with aqualungs. A photo of Charles William Beebe is shown as oceanographer Dayton Carritt discusses Beebe's 1930s bathysphere. In 1953, Auguste Piccard built the first bathyscaphe, the "Trieste," a 50-foot untethered underwater vehicle, after many years of successfully using balloons to study the atmosphere. The "Trieste" operates on the Archimedes principle of water displacement, demonstrated by Dr. Carritt by dropping a tennis ball and a golf ball into water. Dr. Carritt explains in detail a schematic diagram of the "Trieste," showing how the ballast mechanism works with a small experiment and film clip of the procedure. In 1958, the Office of Naval Research bought the "Trieste" from Piccard for $185,000 to study the physical, chemical, biological, and geological characteristics of the ocean. Dr. Carritt interviews Dr. Robert Dietz of the U.S. Navy, who recounts his dive in "Trieste" with Piccard, describing what he saw and how he felt. Dr. Dietz also explains the "false bottom" or "deep scattering layer" and shows a graph of it. He discusses the drawbacks and the uses of bathyscaphes, such as deep sea salvage, mineral mining, and cable monitoring.

Dr. Herbert Friedman, astrophysicist with the U.S. Naval Research Lab, uses a piano to demonstrate that the range of the spectrum from red to violet is one octave of electro-magnetic frequency and notes that the earth's atmosphere blocks all but thirteen of the total sixty octaves of radiation frequencies. He shows a photo of Karl Jansky and a picture and soundtrack of lightening-produced "whistlers," which Jansky studied. In a 1945 film clip, V-2 rockets carry a Lyman alpha solar disk camera above the earth's atmosphere to study ultra-violet wavelengths such as the Lyman alpha line, discovered by Theodore Lyman at Harvard in 1912. The eponymous camera is described in a film as are the photon counters used in the rocket to send data from the flight to the ground. Pictures reveal the sun's characteristics, such as sunspots, flares, and plages. A 1959 detailed photo of the sun taken with the Lyman alpha camera shows the Lyman alpha regions. Another film discusses the study of solar flares and the use of "push button" rocketry to measure them. A film shows two-stage rockets launched from the Pont Arguello, CA U.S. Naval Missile Facility to study the ultraviolet x-ray emissions of solar flares. A chart displays the sun's photosphere surrounded by outer and inner coronas and a chromosphere. An animated segment and film clips document the attempt to photograph the sun during the October 12, 1958 total eclipse. Dr. Friedman concludes the program by explaining the detection of ultra-violet nebulosity in the night sky and lists questions researchers are trying to answer about Lyman alpha light and hydrogen-filled galactic space.

This program opens with a film of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Station in Beltsville, MD. In one greenhouse two groups of plants are receiving the same daytime conditions, but at night one is kept in total darkness while the other receives eight additional hours of incandescent light. Two four-year old loblolly pines show the results of this experiment. Dr. H. A. Borthwick explains that this is to study photoperiodism, or the effect of light on the plants' growth mechanism. In 1918 Wightman W. Garner and Harry A. Allard discovered that it is not the length of the day but rather of the night that is the determining factor in flower and seed production and growth of plants. Further experiments with lettuce, bean, tomato, and corn seeds test the effect of spectrum light colors and exposure on germination. A far red light creates a taller plant, and red light creates the tomato skin color. The mechanism in a plant the reacts to light is not chlorophyll but rather a two-way growth pigment, phytochrome, that acts as a switch with red and far red light. A film shows the process, using a spectrophotometer, by which this was determined. K. H. Norris demonstrates a spectrophotometer with a corn sample and explains the results with graphs. Two film clips show Sterling B. Hendricks doing further research on phytochromes to isolate their molecular structure and Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev at Beltsville, MD listening to Dr. Borthwick discuss crop growth issues.

The Johns Hopkins Glee Club, under the direction of James Mitchell, opens this Christmas program with capella renditions of "See That Babe in the Lowly Manger," "Go Tell It on the Mountain," and "Behold That Star." Hopkins president Milton S. Eisenhower reflects on the observance of Christmas and stories related to the holiday, particularly "Amahl and the Night Visitors." The Glee Club follows with "Lord the Messiah" with piano accompaniment. The Chesapeake Troubadours, a barbershop quartet, sings their version of "Winter Wonderland" and "Jingle Bells." Lynn Poole briefly notes the differences in Christmases around the world. The Glee Club sings "Cradle Song of the Shepherd" and "Lo, How a Rose E're Blooming" and concludes with "Carol of the Bells."