Masks and vaccinations are recommended. Plan your visit
Biology
A Cell in Motion
Turn the crank and watch a moving cell model. Different parts of the cell extend and retract, and the cell’s internal bulk sometimes shifts from one area to another.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
A Sip of Conflict
Would you, could you, will you drink from a water fountain fashioned from an actual—but unused—toilet? Porcelain is just porcelain . . . right?
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
Adapting to Color
Change your perception of color by flooding your eyes with colored light.
Are Your Cells You?
Examine living HeLa cells—the first “immortal” cell line—and explore ethical and philosophical questions about these historic and controversial cells.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
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
Benham's Disk
When the disk is spun, the colors you see are illusions. This effect was popularized in 1894 by toymaker C. E. Benham, who called his spinning disk an “artificial spectrum top."
Where: Crossroads: Getting Started
Big Wood: 300 Years of Photosynthesis
Developed by artist Michael Brown in collaboration with reclaimed wood specialist Evan Shively, a several-hundred-year-old Douglas fir was split down the center to reveal its rings, immersing visitors in a fascinating study of dendrochronology.
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
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
Cheshire Cat
Make your partner's face disappear, leaving only a smile.
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
Color Conflicts
When can reading get in the way of speaking?
Disappearing Act
An animal that blends in with its environment is much easier to see when it's moving than when it's still.
Where: Crossroads: Getting Started
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
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
Glass Settling Plate
Almost any hard object submerged in San Francisco Bay—from pier pilings to the sides of sailboats—quickly becomes a habitat for an ever-changing community of living things. Here you can use a joystick-driven microscope to take a tour of the wonderland of living creatures that have settled on a glass plate that has spent some time submerged in the Bay.
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
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 in a Drop of Water
Light projected through a drop of salt water reveals an abundance of life.
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
Living Systems Explainer Station
Explainers do biology and botany demonstrations.
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
Magic Wand
Wave the wand quickly and see an image appear.
Mapping Migrations
This interactive data visualization reveals the migration tracks of sharks, whales, sea turtles, tuna, and other marine creatures, and lets visitors explore differences in timing, geographic location, and male versus female migration routes.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Microscope Imaging Station
Research-grade microscopes reveal interior worlds of living, changing cells.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Mirrorly a Window
Confusing sensory information can be profoundly disturbing.
Mood Lighting
Sit down in a cozy chair and bathe your brain in a bubble of color of your choosing, dialing up anything from amber to violet. As you spend a few moments with each color, you may feel a shift in your own emotional hue.
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
Native Oyster Colony
Get a closer look at live, Olympia oysters, native to San Francisco.
Where: Fisher Bay Observatory Gallery 6: Observing Landscapes
Pier Piling Pivot
This exhibit uses a geared motor to swing a specially designed piling out of the water so that visitors can examine it in detail. An accompanying legend identifies the intertidal zones on the piling and the species of plant and animal life occupying this unique shoreline environment.
Where: Gallery 5: Outdoor Exhibits
Plankton Populations
Different types of phytoplankton multiply or die off in response to changing ocean conditions.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Plankton Rainbow
Plankton can distinguish between different colors of light.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Probably Chelsea
Twenty different sculptural portraits, all based on the same person's DNA information.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Seeing and Listening Explainer Station
Explainers do light and sound demonstrations.
Sensitive Plants
Gently touch these plants and see how they respond.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
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.
They're Identical . . . Or Are They?
Carefully comparing identical twins can reveal how our surroundings help to shape who we become.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Time to Think
At this exhibit, you can test your reaction time in three different scenarios—each requiring an increasing amount of thought. In the process, you can actually measure the time it takes your brain to accomplish the extra work of making a (fast) decision.
Where: Crossroads: Getting Started
Triple-Aye Lightstick
A sweeping glance creates images that appear and disappear in the blink of an eye. This phenomenon, called persistence of vision, is also at work in videos and movie projections, which also flash on and off rapidly.
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.
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
What Lives Here?
See what living things have attached themselves to our sampling plate.
Where: Gallery 5: Outdoor Exhibits
Within 15 Minutes
Alma Haser photographed sets of identical twins and made them into identical jigsaw puzzles. She then swapped every other piece of their puzzles, completely mixing them half and half. Not always knowing where their eyes mouth, and lips would end up, the result is a pair of eerie, unrecognizable portraits.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Your Father’s Nose
How does it feel to mix your face with someone else’s?
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.
