Masks and vaccinations are recommended. Plan your visit
Molecular & Cellular 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
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
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
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
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
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
Sensitive Plants
Gently touch these plants and see how they respond.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
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
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
