Researchers effectively trust the work of others anytime they use software tools or custom software. In this article I explore this notion of trusting others, using Digital Humanities as a focus, and drawing on my own experience. Software is inherently flawed and limited, so when its use in scholarship demands better practices and terminology, to review research software and describe development processes. It is also important to make research software engineers and their work more visible, both for the purposes of review and credit.

When the first atomic structures of salt crystals were determined by the Braggs in 1912-1913, the analytical power of X-ray crystallography was immediately evident. Within a few decades the technique was being applied to the more complex molecules of chemistry and biology and is rightly regarded as the foundation stone of structural biology, a field that emerged in the 1950s when X-ray diffraction analysis revealed the atomic architecture of DNA and protein molecules. Since then the toolbox of structural biology has been augmented by other physical techniques, including nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, electron microscopy, and solution scattering of X-rays and neutrons. Together these have transformed our understanding of the molecular basis of life. Here I review the major and most recent developments in structural biology that have brought us to the threshold of a landscape of astonishing molecular complexity.

As a direct consequence of exposure to microgravity, astronauts experience a set of physiological changes which can have serious medical implications when they return to earth. Most immediate and significant are the headward shift of body fluids and the removal of gravitational loading from bone and muscles, which lead to progressive changes in the cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems. Cardiovascular adaptations result in an increased incidence of orthostatic intolerance (fainting) following flight, decreased cardiac output, and reduced capacity for exercise. Changes in the musculoskeletal system contribute significantly to impaired function experienced in the post-flight period. The underlying factor producing these changes is the absence of gravity, and countermeasures are therefore designed primarily to simulate earthlike movements, stresses, and system interactions. Exercise is one approach that has had wide operational use and acceptance in both the US and Russian space programmes, and it has enabled humans to stay relatively healthy in space for well over a year. Although it remains the most effective countermeasure currently available, significant physiological degradation still occurs. The development of other countermeasures will be necessary for missions of longer duration, for example for human exploration of Mars.

We argue for teleology as a description of the way in which we ordinarily understand others' intentional actions. Teleology starts from the close resemblance between the reasoning involved in understanding others' actions and one's own practical reasoning involved in deciding what to do. We carve out teleology's distinctive features more sharply by comparing it to its three main competitors: theory theory, simulation theory, and rationality theory. The plausibility of teleology as our way of understanding others is underlined by developmental data in its favour.

Two long-term sci-art research projects are described and positioned in the broader conceptual landscape of interdisciplinary collaboration. Both projects were aimed at understanding and augmenting choreographic decision-making and both were grounded in research conducted within a leading contemporary dance company. In each case, the work drew upon methods and theory from the cognitive sciences, and both had a direct impact on the way in which the company made new work. In the synthesis presented here the concept of an audit trace is introduced. Audit traces identify how specific classes of knowledge are used and transformed not only within the arts or sciences but also when arts practice is informed by science or when arts practice informs science.

This paper examines how materials libraries are used as tools for interdisciplinary collaboration in 3 research projects that inhabit a disciplinary triangle between materials research, design and user needs: , which explores how materials collections can be used in psychological therapies; , a design-led project to develop new smart materials; and , which uses materials collections to develop a bespoke prosthetics service. The paper analyses and contrasts these case studies to better understand the affordances and limitations of materials collections when used as research, translational and design tools. We conclude that in collaborations between materials researchers, designers and end users, tensions arise as a result of the primacy that each partner gives to creativity, the development of new knowledge and to solving societal problems. The use of a materials library addresses many of these issues but is not a panacea for all the problems associated with interdisciplinary working.

The metaphorical adoption of the concepts of information, program and signal introduced into biology the logic and implicit causal structure of the mathematical theories of information; this is inimical to biology. In turn, those metaphors have hindered the development of a theory of organisms by transferring the agency of organisms to natural selection and to DNA. Moreover, those metaphors introduced into biology the dualism software-hardware and a Laplacian causal structure. Instead, we propose to uphold the agency of the living by adopting three foundational principles for a theory of organisms: namely, 1) the principle of biological inertia (i.e., the default state of cells is proliferation and motility), 2) the principle of variation, and 3) the principle of organization.

Ayahuasca has a variety of traditional uses, yet there is a growing global interest in its potential therapeutic benefits for mental health conditions. Novel approaches to psychotherapy are emerging to address the needs of ayahuasca users to prepare as well as to guide them in 'integrating' their powerful psychedelic experiences, yet there is little discussion on the ethical frameworks that may structure these therapeutic processes or the social and cultural assumptions that influence the assignment of ayahuasca as a medicine. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in San Martín and Loreto, Peru, I examine the varied social meanings and uses of ayahuasca in the Peruvian vegetalista tradition and the potential ethical tensions among curanderos, mental health practitioners, and ayahuasca retreat centers. Practitioners and ayahuasca centers are left with navigating globalized concepts of mental health and ethics while attempting to remain authentic to local ontologies of healing, care, and safety.