Image courtesy of The American Museum of Natural History
Next time you’re in New York City you should stop by the American Museum of Natural History and visit a good friend and favorite zombie snack: your brain. Millions of years of evolution have helped shape our gray matter into the thought processing plant it is today.
In a new exhibit called Brain:The Inside Story, the AMNH combines new findings about how our brains work with research on evolutionary history and the diversity of life to give visitors a deeper understanding of their brain.
The exhibit starts off small with a preserved brain on display then plunges you into the high speed communications network that is the nervous system. Spanish Artist Daniel Canogar has built a 35 foot walkway of cables and lights, made from 1,500 pounds of recycled material, to represent the brain’s electrical system.
This is just the beginning of the journey. With multimedia presentations, interactive exhibits and giant representations of the cells that make up the brain you will get a real sense of how your noggin gets so much done throughout your day.
Here’s a rundown of some of the exhibits:
Introductory Theater: To learn some basics about the brain and how it functions, visitors follow a Julliard dance student during an audition. A video projection shows how her activities simultaneously correlate with activity in her brain through the illumination of a large three-dimensional brain model in the theater.
Your Sensing Brain: Explore the senses through interactive exhibits and learn how your brain gets and process information. You’ll also learn how your brain can be fooled by sensory illusions.
Your Emotional Brain: This section explores how emotions are processed in the brain. You can explore how our emotion processing evolved over millions of years.
Your Thinking Brain: This section asks visitors to think about thinking, as intelligence is portrayed in all of its complexity as a sum of different types of intelligence, including spatial, general, mathematical, and emotional. With interactive exhibits to test and tease those special parts of the brain, you’ll have a lot to think about.
Your Changing Brain: Examine how the brain has evolved over millions of years to help us claw our way to the top of the food chain.
If you’re planning on visiting New York for the holidays you should block out some time to visit the American Museum of Natural History and get reacquainted with a good friend who’s always been there for you: Your Brain!
What: BRAIN: THE INSIDE STORY
Where: The American Museum of Natural History
When: Until August 14th 2011
Cost: Free With Admission