Willravel

I popped up to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco this afternoon and snapped a few pictures of the new renovations.

This is the new four-story rainforest exhibit. It's entirely spherical, air-tight, and completely self-contained. If you're planning a visit, you may want to wear shorts and a t-shirt because it's generally around 90 degrees with at least 75% humidity, something otherwise alien to San Francisco during December.







Inside the dome is a wide assortment of tropical plants and animals. There are about 1,600 animals and a 100,000 gallon tank which you can walk under.









Finally, there's the living roof. The roof of the museum has growing on it nearly 200,000 square feet of Northern California native plants which help to reduce the cost of heating and cooling, not to mention that reduce the reflected heat of the roof. The large circular ports can open, allowing hot air to escape from the museum.

inBOIL

That place looks deserted. When I went it was crowded with hellspawn, which detracted from the experience somewhat.

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And you believe Bush and the liberals and divorced parents and gays and blacks and the Christian right and fossil fuels and Xbox are all to blame, meanwhile you yourselves create an ad where your kid hits you in the head with a baseball and you don't understand the message that the problem is you.

Magpie_1

I love the photo underneath the wales.

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"Art is what you can get away with."
- Andy Warhol

genuinegirly

Awesome! I wish my upcoming trip to California included a venture up North to see it - thanks for sharing the photos.

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"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

Willravel

I waited to take pics until people were mostly out of the way. I was more trying to get the animal/plant life and architecture. The place wasn't buzzing on an early Monday afternoon, but there were a lot of people there, especially in the underwater tube.

Tech

haha great minds think alike eh? (photo from my visit) i was there for the grand reopening, which was a total coincidence, as i live on the east coast. it was packed, but it was a blast.

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-Tim-

~I swear sometimes i feel like i'm married to a child.
~You better watch who you're calling a child, Lois, cause if i'm a child than you know what that makes you? a pedophile. and i'll be damned if i'm going to stand here and be lectured by a pervert.

Baraka_Guru

This is a house of lies!

Just kidding. It's beautiful. I wish there was something like this in Toronto. I think the closest thing is the Biodome in Montreal.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot