Heather, Erin, Ryan, and Rachel attended the Exploratorium’s After Dark “Transformations” event.

We danced in the shadows of the Light Orchestra, where each of our movements were reflected in the 1,250 pixels of dancing light. “The Light Orchestra is a visual instrument you command with your body. As you wave, gesture, or dance, a 20-foot wall of more than 1,000 full-color lights responds to your motion. A small movement creates a flickering change; a sweeping motion throws a brilliant fountain of color.” Designed by local Bay Area artists/technologists (and Patel lab friend!) Ka-Ping Yee (Ping) and Benjamin James of Cool Neon.

We discovered our inner fishy-ness (and gently corrected a few minor errors post talk) in the research-relevant talk “Discover Your Inner Fishy-Ness! with Charlie Carlson. Your body holds many fishy features, evidence of a connection to our species’ distant past. Over the course of 375 million years, time and error transformed ancient fish into the human beings of today. Our familiar body parts—teeth, senses, limbs—retain surprising traces of their origins. This talk will trace their development back to their beginnings in the piscine body, or even earlier. it’s a story of genes, cells, and the environment operating in concert, mutating and changing to give life its marvelous complexity.”

It was a night of transformation, evo-devo, GMO’s, and metamorphosis. The museum was packed by science enthusiasts and a curious public, clear evidence that the general public is indeed enthusiastic about discovering more from subjects closest to the heart of Patel lab research.