After Dark: It's Alive!

Tonight's Schedule of Events

Presentations

Exploring our Genetic Past and Future
With Carl Zimmer in Conversation with Jennifer Frazier
7:30 p.m. | Gallery 4 

Knowledge may be power, but what about genetic information? Join celebrated science writer and New York Times columnist Carl Zimmer, in conversation with Exploratorium scientist Jennifer Frazier, for a profoundly original perspective on the role our genes play in who we become. Explore new ways of thinking about the genes we carry from generation to generation, and how genetic information can be used—or misused—to advance agendas. Zimmer’s new book, She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity, will be available for purchase and signing at the program.

Full-Spectrum Science: Science Fiction Turned Fact
With Ron Hipschman
8:00 p.m. | Osher Gallery 1, Kanbar Forum 

Join Exploratorium scientist Ron Hipschman for colorful explorations of the physical world. 

Science fiction has predicted many things. Some have come true (think touch screens, submarines, bionic limbs), others, not so much—or at least, not yet. If you’ve ever wondered where your flying car or rocket belt is, or why you don’t yet have a robot servant, find out at Full-Spectrum Science.

Creepy Crawly Science and Conversation on Screen
With the producers and scientists behind Deep Look
8:30 p.m. | Bechtel Gallery 3, Wattis Webcast Studio

Deep Look is a short video series that explores big scientific mysteries by going incredibly small. Go behind the series and hear harrowing tales from its producers and the scientists they worked with to capture some of their creepier creature videos. From face mites to leeches to ticks and more, get ready to have that creepy-crawly feeling just in time for Halloween.

Hidden Nature SF: Unmasking Historical Ecology
With Sean Baumgarten and Micaela Bazo
8:30 p.m. | Bechtel Gallery 3

The place we now call San Francisco was once a radically different landscape from its current urbanized form—home to the Ohlone and defined by vast, wind-swept sand dunes and tidal marshes teeming with life. Despite transformation over the past 250 years, hidden creeks, remnant natural areas, rising shorelines, and native wildlife still shape the city’s character and resilience. Join Sean Baumgarten and Micaela Bazo of the San Francisco Estuary Institute to learn more about historical ecology and the collaborative project Hidden Nature SF, which uses the lens of the past to prompt discussion around the potentials of the future.

Ongoing

Deep Look: Genetics
6:00–7:30 p.m. | Bechtel Gallery 3, Wattis Webcast Studio

From pygmy seahorses to praying mantises, uncover surprising stories of adaptation and evolution in this screening of shorts from KQED's science and nature series Deep Look. Drawn from their archive of over 100 videos giving a macro view of nature’s mysteries, you’ll see some of  the unusual tactics these creatures use to pass on their genes and survive. Note: this screening is approximately 15 minutes and will run on a loop from 6:00–7:30 p.m.  Want more Deep Look?  Come back at 8:30 p.m. for harrowing tales from the producers and the scientists they worked with on several of  their creepiest creature videos.

Tracing San Francisco’s Lost Landscape
With the San Francisco Estuary Institute
6:30–8:30 p.m. | Bechtel Gallery 3

Join the team behind Hidden Nature SF to identify and observe the ways in which our local ecologies and habitats have shifted over time. Hidden Nature SF uses interdisciplinary science and visualization techniques to synthesize historical archival data into a completely new perspective through which to view the familiar city. Let the team guide you in an activity that compares historic maps and photographs of San Francisco with more recent documentation, prompting conversation and observation around what has changed and what remains the same.

Robot Swarm
With the Lim Lab and the Cell Design Institute
6:30–9:30 p.m. | Bechtel Gallery 3

A robot swarm may sound like something out of science fiction, but a collaboration between UCSF’s Lim Lab and the Self-Organizing Systems Lab at Harvard is very real. Kilobots—simple collective robot swarms—have only basic sensing and movement abilities, but are able to communicate and self-organize in complex ways. Stop by and find out how the Lim Lab is using them to simulate and teach about molecular and cellular collective systems.

Deep Look: Creepy Crawly Specimen Stations
6:30–9:30 p.m. | Bechtel Gallery 3

Test your fear factor at creepy specimen stations hosted by the producers of KQED’s Deep Look. Learn about  microscopic mites and have them pulled from your own skin, and get intimate insight into other unusual bugs and insects like tenacious ticks. Discover more at 8:30 p.m., when Deep Look presents Creepy Crawly Science and Conversation on Screen.

Take a Cellfie
With Exploratorium Staff
8:00–9:30 p.m. | Gallery 4, Bio Bar

Get ready for the ultimate close-up and take a photo of yourself with your very own cells. Learn about the tiny building blocks that make up your body by viewing your own cheek cells under a microscope. Then take your own “cell-fie” and double-expose your face with an image of your cells, showing off what you look like at two vastly different magnifications.