As if the wait weren't excruciating enough, the San Francisco Chronicle has a walk-through preview of the new California Academy of Sciences. The $484 million update won't open until next Fall, but once you read this article you'll be banging down the building's doors wanting to catch a glimpse.
The CAS has a special place in my heart, as I grew up just a few blocks from Golden Gate Park. Every chance I got I dragged my parents, friends, or grandmothers to the building. My favorite exhibit was the huge alligator swamp bordered by aquariums of snakes and spiders. My mom avoided this area, while my dad and I joked about which of the slithery beauties we'd put on my mom's pillow.
Anyway, I digress. The new Academy is on its way to becoming even cooler than I remember. Here are some key features that are making my geeky heart flutter.
- Some of the labs, where researchers will be working, will be installed behind glass walls so visitors can spy on genius at work.
-At 25 feet deep, the living coral reef is the deepest such museum reef in the world. Visitors will be able to peer into the reef from the open top, or they can crawl into a bubble window to spy on the reef's population of 1,500 colonies of coral, 4,000 colorful reef fish, and 16 stingrays along with an assortment of bamboo and reef sharks and sea turtles.
-Morisson Planetarium will screen live feeds from NASA's planetary missions via a digital projector and onto a 90-foot dome with a 75-foot screen (equal in size to the largest planetarium in the country, the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles).
-And my all time fave alligator tank will include an albino gator, along with an underwater viewing area.
To wet your appetite even more, check out SFGate's – video tour of the space, which is just now starting to populate its exhibition rooms.
