After Dark: Superpowers

PRESENTATIONS

Planaria and Tardigrades
With Angela Armendariz and Hilleary Osheroff
6:00 and 8:00 p.m. | East Gallery

Impossible to kill!
Tardigrades, a.k.a. water bears, are invincible creatures able to tolerate conditions and temperatures that would kill nearly any other organism.

Amazing powers of regeneration!
A cut piece of planaria flatworm—as small as ¹/₂₇₉ of an original organism—can grow into an entirely new animal.

Amoeba and Stentor
With Alex Pinigis and Denise King
7:00 and 9:00 p.m. | East Gallery

The single-celled Swamp Thing!
Behold Stentor’s unusual abilities under the microscope, and see why biologists are beginning to study this blue-green giant again after a decades-long hiatus.

A giant, shape-shifting protist!
Watch Amoeba proteus move by extending and retracting pseudopods, or protrustions of cytoplasm, which it uses to devour live prey.

Super Senses
With Kara Platoni
7:30 p.m. | Phyllis C. Wattis Webcast Studio

From the bionic eye to the thought-controlled robotic limb, from virtual reality gear to biohacker implants, humankind is learning how to alter our sensory experiences, give ourselves perceptual superpowers and (maybe) hack ourselves a sixth sense. Take in the future of the human body with science journalist Kara Platoni, and find out if you're already a sensory cyborg.

“Where No X-Man Has Gone Before!" Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics
With Ramzi Fawaz
8:00 p.m. | Osher West Gallery, Kanbar Forum

How do heroes like the X-Men, The New Mutants, and the Fantastic Four allow us to bridge cultural and social distances between ourselves and others? Dive into the creative worlds of superhero comic books with Dr. Ramzi Fawaz, and discover how superpowers like telepathy, telekinesis, weather control, illusionism, and others act as metaphors for our own real-world ability to interact with, and have an effect on, a diverse wider world.

Mirror-Touch Synesthesia
With Bryan Alvarez
8:30 p.m. | Phyllis C. Wattis Webcast Studio

“I feel you. No, literally: I feel everything that happens to you on my body too.”

We generally think of empathy as a sense of another person’s suffering or emotions. And yet some of us literally feel the touch, movement, and pain of others on our own bodies. What’s going on? Get a feel for this form of sensory blending with neuroscientist Dr. Bryan Alvarez, and test your own ability to feel another’s experience in an audience-wide experiment.

Amazing Arthropods
With Ralph Washington Jr.
6:30–9:30 p.m. | East Gallery Corridor

Insects and spiders have traits that differ greatly from our own, and some of these differences are more than mundane. From springing spittlebugs to mighty mound ants to luminous lightning bugs, many arthropods possess seemingly super-powered attributes. Examine the science of Ant-Man, and marvel at the ways biology enables arthropods to accomplish their amazing feats.

Costumed Coosaders
With Palomacy Pigeon and Dove Rescue
6:30–9:30 p.m.| East Gallery Corridor

Pal around with pigeons wearing pants and learn about their special powers of vision, hearing, homing, and devotion. Get a new perspective on these gentle and intelligent birds.

The Hidden Powers of Plants and Fungi
With the California Center for Natural History
6:30–9:30 p.m. | East Gallery Corridor

Uncover the stranger-than-fiction abilities of plants, molds, and mushrooms with members of the California Center for Natural History.

Plants might seem stationary and placid, but they’re actually masters of telepathy, flight, impersonation, and more. Not only do we depend on them for our daily survival, we’ve also learned how to better live in the world by observing and mimicking their behaviors. And fungus, close friend to plants yet more similar to animals, is a creature that can eat radiation, survive with less water than any other organism on the planet, live inside rocks, have 28,000 different sexes, and weave themselves into a natural Wood Wide Web.

Unicellular Powers: Activate Multicellularity
With the King Lab
6:30–9:30 p.m. | East Gallery Corridor, Microscope Imaging Station

How did multicellular animals evolve from single-celled organisms? The answer may lie with choanoflagellates, a group of wriggling, unicellular creatures capable of swimming independently or linking together to form multicellular colonies—prompted by a chemical signal from the bacterium Algoriphagus.

Explore the origin of animals with members of the King Lab, and learn how choanoflagellates may help us to better understand the transition from one cell to many in the history of evolution.

Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
6:30 -9:30 p.m. | Throughout museum

Meet San Francisco’s veiled crusaders, The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence®. Since their first appearance on Easter Sunday, 1979, this leading-edge Order of queer nuns has devoted themselves to community service, ministry, and outreach to those on the edges, and to promoting human rights, respect for diversity, and spiritual enlightenment.

ACTIVITIES

Tesla Coils
With Explorables
7:00–10:00 p.m. | South Gallery

Experience the power of wireless electricity. Make a miniature version of the Tesla coil, a high-voltage, low-current must-have for any mad scientist’s laboratory.

Memory Palaces, Mnemonics, and More
With the San Francisco Bay Memory Club
6:30–9:30 p.m. | Bechtel Central Gallery

Curious about memory palaces or the mnemonic peg system? Keen to put names to faces, recite a favorite poem, or memorize a slice of pi? Sharpen your mind with select memorization tricks.

Teleportation
With CyArk
6:30­­–9:30 p.m. | Fisher Bay Observatory Gallery

Take a virtual trip around the globe in this unique preview of CyArk’s 3-D library of endangered world heritage sites. Visit a twelfth-century Buddhist temple at Bagan, Myanmar; explore a favored watering hole of the mythical winged horse Pegasus, an ancient fountain build around a natural spring at Corinth, Greece; and stop in South Dakota to experience Mount Rushmore from the perspective of the 400 carvers who created the monument during the Great Depression.