The program opens with a brief history of the evolution of metal and its uses in early tools, utensils, weapons, and ornaments. In 1900 only sixteen kinds of metal were used by American industry, but at the time of this program, there are 321 known metals and alloys. Lynn Poole shows a piece of a new metal, Fiberfrax, that doesn't get hot when heated. Dr. Maddin, associate professor of metallurgy at Johns Hopkins University, discusses the inside of metal and shows a model of atoms in a perfect metal and one with deviations or imperfections. Mr. Poole notes that only 460 metallurgists are being trained in 45 colleges each year but at least three times that number are needed each year for the next ten years. Dr. Hollomon, head of the metallurgy and ceramic research division of General Electric (GE), lists common metal products and discusses how metals, such as titanium alloys, must be made stronger to withstand the higher temperatures occurring at faster jet speeds and to solve the problem of fractured pipelines and ships. There are career opportunities for chemist metallurgists, involving ingots and arch melting; process metallurgists, researching the forces in metals; development metallurgists, testing stresses and corrosion of metals; and research metallurgists, looking inside metals. Dr. Hollomon recommends studying math, physics, and chemistry in high school to begin the path to becoming a metallurgist. Dr. Vannevar Bush, president of the Carnegie Institution, promotes the benefits of this forthcoming Johns Hopkins career series and comments on the applications of modern science to the improvement of life. The pamphlet, "A Career in Metallurgy," is offered to viewers for a postcard.

As an introduction to this program's career, Lynn Poole notes that it was announced this week that the Salk vaccine is effective in preventing polio. He also points out that in 1890 Dr. M. Cary Thomas was only allowed to attend classes at Johns Hopkins University if she sat behind a screen because she was a woman in a men's institution. But this program features Isabelle Schaub, assistant professor of microbiology at that university and author of the Diagnostic bacteriology textbook. She introduces a number of young women and describes their laboratory job functions in the fields of bacteriology, biochemistry, hematology, serology, and histology. Brief film clips, from the National Committee for Careers in Medical Technology, show the processes of preparing slides of body tissues and studying blood cells under a microscope. Ms. Schaub lists three ways to enter the field: as an entry level lab aid, as a recipient of the American Society of Clinical Pathologists certificate, or as a college graduate.

Raymond Loewy, the Father of Industrial Design, defines his profession as one that designs products for mass production. Simplicity and functionality are key in his designs of packaging, service centers, uniforms, household goods, modes of transportation, and other functions. Mr. Loewy, who came to the United States in 1919, displays some of his product designs such as the Lucky Strike cigarette package, an electric heater with better stability, a bathroom scale with improved legibility, a silent eggbeater, a safe pressure cooker, a bottle with anti-slip grip, inexpensive but tasteful flatware, and other items. He comments on designs typically found in rooms in 1900 and 1926 and shows how they've been improved. His 1951 book, Never leave well enough alone, recommends simplifying goods and improving them to lower their manufacturing costs. Designer of the Studebaker car, Loewy shows cartoons of overdone cars with "dagmars" and others influenced by airplane designs.

Dr. Loren C. Eiseley, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, lectures from material in his 1958 prize-winning book, "Darwin's Century." He explains why he teaches and how man's brain receives impressions and profits from experiences. He reads from Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" as well as from Alfred Russel Wallace's work that recognizes man's brain as the totally new factor in the history of life. Man has the ability to invent, progress, and make changes in his surroundings; and man's ethics, arts, and religions determine his cruelty or humaneness. Dr. Eiseley notes that man is relatively young in the total history of life, but with his mechanical inventions and implements of war and power of choice for good or evil, man and his science have made humanity's extinction possible. Showing a chart of anthropoidal skulls of man's ancestors, Dr. Eiseley says the potential destiny of man is unknown. Because of the Cold War, we need to take responsibility now for spiritual greatness. He warns that man should not abandon or forget how he has always tried to transcend himself spiritually, and he quotes C. S. Lewis on the rationality of man.

This program is the first public showing of a film (whose title is from a line in Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn") made by Donald H. Andrews and funded by Mrs. William Hale Harkness. Dr. Andrews hypothesizes that all matter is music since all matter in the universe vibrates, and tones and harmonies are made by vibrations. The motion of a plucked violin string and its adjacent string (sympathetic resonance) are shown in slow motion and on an oscilloscope. Dr. Andrews discusses one dimensional harmony, as described by Pythagoras. Two dimensional harmonies are indicated by the fractional overtones of a drum head membrane, which is shown in slow motion and heard electronically enhanced. Three dimensional harmonies result from the contraction and expansion of a sphere; however, differently shaped solids, such as statues, have fractional resonances that produce unique chords or harmonic patterns when vibrating. Four dimensional harmonies come from atom vibration, a wave whose harmonic pattern is displayed by a vibrating sphere. Thus, Dr. Andrews concludes that since an atom is not a particle that vibrates in space, but rather the vibration itself, all matter is in dynamic form or all matter is music. He continues by playing on a piano the chords of tones of atoms produced by different chemical compounds. He also shows and discusses the pattern of Bach's music on an oscilloscope and music composed by Rebekah West Harkness. In conclusion, Dr. Andrews discusses the dynamic form of the human body's symphony and its small chords in the larger universe.

This program, hosted by Leo Geier, takes place aboard the "Maury", a laboratory ship belonging to the Johns Hopkins' Chesapeake Bay Institute. Assistant director Dayton Carritt explains that the Institute was founded in 1948 to study the physical and chemical oceanography of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries and to conduct the academic program in oceanography at Johns Hopkins University. The Bay is 200 miles long, 20 miles wide, and a great natural resource for commercial and recreational users. Dr. Donald Pritchard, director of the Institute, shows viewers such below deck equipment as the pyrheliometer, which measures and records the intensity of solar radiation; and thetri-filter hydrophotometer, which measures the amount of red, green, and blue light that penetrates the various depths of the Bay and indicates the amount of energy in the water available for underwater plant growth. Using a schematic illustration, Dr. Carritt describes the environmental factors affecting plants and organisms in the Bay, such as water currents, temperature, and salinity as well as availability of plant food, oxygen, and animal life. Dick Whaley demonstrates a microscope mounted with a camera to study and record species of organisms such as diatoms. Other instruments read the salinity and temperature of the water, measure the angle of the current, and analyze the amount of dissolved oxygen in water for plant use. Scuba divers Tom Hopkins and Jim Carpenter discuss their apparatus and their Bell and Howell movie camera with underwater lens before going overboard to study the oyster and clam beds for predators and general condition. These are all examples of pure research on the Chesapeake Bay.

Rear Admiral Thomas F. Connolly outlines Project Transit, the first operational navigation satellite system for the use of submarines and surface vessels. He gives credit for this idea to Dr. William Guier and Dr. George Weiffenbach, of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (APL), who realized that after the launch of Russian Sputnik I they could track its position by observing the Sputnik's Doppler shift. Frank McClure, heard of research at APL, visualized that the opposite would then be true: a satellite in orbit could determine a point of reference on earth. Dr. Richard Kershner, former head of the Terrier surface to air missile program at APL, headed the designing and building of the Transit satellite. Dr. Kershner explains why the Doppler technique is highly accurate, and an animated segment simplifies this phenomenon. Using a chart and a mock up, Dr. Kershner describes the construction and sections of Transit I and how it functions, including its solar cells, radiation shield, and telemetering system. Film clips taken at APL show testing of weights on the satellite as well as the shake test, centrifuge test, and heat/cold tests. Additional film clips show the tracking stations, to monitor the satellite's received signals, in Maryland, New Mexico, and Texas, plus two mobile vans stationed in Washington and Newfoundland. Rear Admiral Connolly discusses the future of this project as it adds more satellites and notes that this television program is the first to reveal Project Transit, "the practical navigational system of the future." Host Lynn Poole concludes this twelfth anniversary program by pointing out that it is the oldest program on network television. He reminisces about the four stations on the network (Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York) when the first program premiered on March 9, 1948. Poole also shows clips from "Fear," the oldest program kinescoped (October 3, 1950), the 1952 three-part series on outer space featuring Heinz Haber and Wernher Von Braun, and APL's Dr. Ralph E. Gibson's orbital shots of "The World from 70 Miles Up" (December 17, 1948). Poole quotes Isaiah Bowman, Johns Hopkins' president in 1948: "Television is an exciting new medium by which we can extend the knowledge of a university beyond the confines of the classroom and the campus to those who are curious about the world in which they live."

This program celebrates the 150th anniversary of the tin can. To meet military demands for preserved foods during war, Nicholas Appert devised a method of preserving foods by heating them in sealed containers to destroy the bacteria. In 1812 Peter Durand invented the tin can and the first canning factory opened in Great Britain. A dramatization describes a typical 1815 dinner consisting predominantly of pickled, salted, smoked, and dried foods. Thomas Kensett patented Durand's tin cans in the U.S. in 1825. During the Civil War demands for canned foods increased, boosting mass production of the tin cans. Other products began appearing in cans, such as I. W. Lyons' tooth powder for home use; Gerhard Mennen's talcum powder for babies, in a lithographed can with a sprinkle top; and Gilbert Van Camp's pork and beans combination. A selection of 1880s mass produced, decorative tins display a variety of products, many non-perishable. Soldering the tops of cans by hand gave way to open-topped cans that could be seamed shut by machine. The only exception to this were condensed or evaporated milk cans, patented in 1856 by Gail Borden. A film shows a canning factory, producing 30,000 cans per hour, from cutting the tin plate to testing and shipping the final products. The aerosol can, first used in World War II for insecticide, is also discussed.

Host Lynn Poole sets the scene of the late 18th/early 19th century Rocky Mountain fur trappers who crossed the Missouri River (the "Yellow Waters") to trap beavers and sell pelts, blazing the Oregon Trail as they advanced. In 1837 Baltimore, Maryland painter Alfred Jacob Miller joined the American Fur Company caravan, with Scottish Captain William Drummond Stewart, to make a visual record of their trip to the fur traders' rendezvous in the Green River Valley of Wyoming. A map shows their route from Independence, Missouri to Oregon. Miller's sketches, later transformed into over 200 watercolors (now preserved in the Walters Art Gallery and displayed on this program) and oil paintings, chronicle such events as buffalo hunts, prairie fires, and river crossings, as well as such landmarks as Chimney Rock, Scott's Bluff, Fort Laramie, Independence Rock, and The Devil's Gate. Miller's paintings also show encounters with Sioux tribes and Black Feet Indians, various tribal members, and Indian women. The final painting shown portrays trapper Joe Walker with his new Indian wife heading into the wilderness after the rendezvous. Lynn Poole concludes the program by describing how missionaries such as Marcus and Narcissa Whitman took the Oregon Trail to Walla Walla, Washington, followed later by the many settlers moving West.

This is the final program of The Johns Hopkins University television series. In it, Dr. George Carter, geography professor at Hopkins, notes that Louis S.B. Leakey found evidence of the earliest primitive man and his tools in Kenya. He then displays revised maps of the world that reveal different land masses during glacial periods, thus allowing the Kenyan man to explore new lands and form colonies over a period of 100,000 years until the glaciers receded and the oceans returned. Dr. Carter discusses the transformation of Kenyan man from an isolated pygmy into modern man with regional or racial characteristics, such as the cave dwelling "Sinanthropus pekinesis" in northern China and the Swanscombe man in England. Glacial periods also created a land bridge near the Bering Strait, allowing animals and man to cross from Asia into North America. Tools found in the Americas plus the physical characteristics of early American Indians offer proof of waves of Asian migrations. Survivors of early man include the australoids, europids, and mongoloids. At the conclusion of the program, host Lynn Poole thanks members of the studio, university, and network for their hard work and dedication. John McClay, general manager of station WJZ-TV, expresses his gratitude to Johns Hopkins University and Lynn Poole especially. University president Milton S. Eisenhower thanks everyone responsible for the shows and announces reluctantly that "File 7" will not be on the air next season. He says that the "business of producing, creating, and presenting a weekly program has become increasingly burdensome," and because of the University's other commitments, it is unable to produce shows of the high quality expected of Johns Hopkins. Furthermore, Dr. Eisenhower hopes that this "will be only an interruption and not a permanent termination" of Hopkins educational television. Thirteen "File 7" reruns will be shown during the summer of 1960, but it will not be continued thereafter.