Masks and vaccinations are recommended. Plan your visit
Anatomy & Physiology
Adapting to Color
Change your perception of color by flooding your eyes with colored light.
Bird in a Cage
Stare at a bird’s eye for 30 seconds, then look into the empty cage. You’ll see a ghostly bird—of a very different color—inside the cage
Blood Cells in Your Eye
Gaze into the eyepiece at the blue light, looking for bright specks moving in short bursts against the background, and feeling your pulse as you watch them.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Bronze Hand
The combination of past experience and the sight and feel of being touched seems to change your brain's definition of your body's boundaries. You may even feel as if the fake hand is part of you.
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
Floater Theater
Floater Theater is an intimate theatrical environment that whimsically prompts participants to explore the fascinating, commonly experienced phenomenon of eye floaters.
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
Give Heart Cells a Beat
Give Heart Cells a Beat invites visitors to control human heart cells, using their heart rate to drive the beating of the cells.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Hoop Nightmares
Your brain adapts quickly to a warped view of the world, turning baskets into air balls.
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
Is It Genetic?
Answer questions about certain of your physical features, such as what color your eyes are, and how attached the bottoms of your ears are to your head. Then find out what roles genes and your environment play in these traits.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Living Systems Explainer Station
Explainers do biology and botany demonstrations.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Mirrorly a Window
Confusing sensory information can be profoundly disturbing.
Seeing and Listening Explainer Station
Explainers do light and sound demonstrations.
Shhhh . . . Quiet
Sometimes no sound is what you want. At this exhibit, try to walk as quietly as possible across a bed of gravel. The gravel is studded with sound sensors, and each crunch adds unwanted points to your score on the monitor. Watch others, then see if you can beat their score.
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
Sound Bite
Bite down on a straw and listen to music that only you can hear, as sound travels to your inner ear via your teeth and bones.
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
Velvet Hands
A surprising—and as yet unexplained—tactile illusion can occur when you slowly rub your palms across this mesh. You may feel a strange, slippery sensation, as if there’s a thin film of velvet between your hands.
Your Father’s Nose
How does it feel to mix your face with someone else’s?
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
