Hosted by actor Tom Cavanagh, Stories from the Vaults is a series of 30-minute shows featuring a behind-the-scenes look at the Smithsonian Institution, the world's largest museum complex.
Beauty comes in many forms and in this episode Tom Cavanagh explores the subject through the perspective of three Smithsonian curators and their views on ants, orchids and the world of advertising.
Join Tom Cavanagh as he examines the cockpit of a jumbo jet, Thomas Edison's earliest light bulbs, and the first video game consoles ever invented.
Each of its objects has a scope that encompasses answers to questions as yet unasked, from photography, providing a multiplicity of meaning a single image, to the National Zoo, housing animals and DNA for study in future centuries.
Then search the Panama Canal for clues to the creation of the Panamanian Isthmus, and rise sixteen stories atop the rainforest in a construction crane to do bug research.
This episode goes behind the scenes and see what might be called "extreme conservation": like saving animals from the brink of extinction; finding new ways to preserve a provocative work of art; or reviving an entire genre of music.