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Traits of Life
What are the essential elements of life? How can you distinguish between the living and nonliving world? Explore these questions and more at the Exploratorium’s Life Science collection. After years of research and development, Traits of Life opened in 2002, featuring over 30 new and revitalized biology exhibits and demonstrations. The collection examines the fundamental elements common to all living things.
- 2002
Bacteriopolis
Thousands of distinct species live and breathe (or not) in this colorful bacterial terrarium. Look for green cyanobacteria, orange iron oxidizers, and gray cellulose eaters. What you see today will be gone tomorrow in this living artwork in a perpetual state of change.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Can You Spot the Human?
An array of embryo photos—can you guess which one is human? Then try it with photos of different eggs. And sperm.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Energy from Death
A decaying carcass makes a perfect meal for an assortment of scavengers, including the dermestid beetles you can see in this exhibit. As they feast on these carcasses, the dermestid beetles and their larvae get their energy and nutrients from the dried flesh, skin, and other tissues.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Leaves that Sprout Plants
Looking closely at the leaves of kalanchoe plants, you can see tiny sprouts growing from the leaf edges. Each of these plantlets can grow into a clone—a genetic copy of the parent plant.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Life on the Rocks
All these organisms are adapted to life in California's rocky tidal zone.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Live Chicken Embryos
It takes just 21 days for an egg to go from just laid to newly hatched chick, and a lot goes on in just the first week. Look closely and you’ll find blood vessels, a backbone, wing buds, eyes, a brain, and—throbbing prominently by day 5 or so—a beating heart.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Look Inside a Developing Fish
Here you can see inside living zebrafish embryos, see their blood circulate, and compare your own pulse to theirs.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Microscope Imaging Station
Research-grade microscopes reveal interior worlds of living, changing cells.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Weird Wings
See how the combination of DNA mutations and temperature can change the shape of a fly's wings.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
