Calafornia Academy of Sciences

On our last weekend in San Fran, Anita came to visit. We had fun doing some touristy things in San Fran, including visiting the fantastic California Academy of Sciences Museum in Golden Gate Park.

The Cal Academy was recently rebuilt as a "the greenest museum in the world." Designed by Renzo Piano, the building has all sorts of clever technologies and designs to minimize energy use, reuse water and create habitat for plants and animals (on it's roof). If you are into this sort of thing, you can check out the details here.

Shela and Anita

Inside the museum, there is a state-of-the-art digital planetarium, a very extensive aquarium, a 4-story rainforest and many other exhibits. It is really impressive. We spent 5 1/2 hours exploring every corner of the place until finally demophobia drove us out.

Evolution and global warming were big themes in the exhibits. Not sure
the Palin family would have a good time here.

A cool display on human genetics

The planetarium (top left) is surrounded by an aquarium moat

On top of the coral reef tank

Underneath

Albino alligator

Queing for the rainforest dome

Above and underneath the flooded amazon forest.