Amoebas Move by Flowing

By changing its fluid shape, this microbe slides along surfaces underwater and in moist soil. A portion of the cell membrane reaches out and the cell contents (cytoplasm) flow into the pseudopod, or false foot. It can change or redirect its motion at any moment. Visitors spin a unique animation tool to watch the process in actions.

Aquarium

The first things to be noticed at the aquarium exhibit are usually the fish, plants, rocks and sand. They are all parts of the aquarium "world", both living and non-living. There are also lots of microbes, invisible to the naked eye but present in the millions, living in the water of the aquarium.

Beer and Bread Are Made With Microbes

Living yeast, a microbe, makes beer and wine by fermenting sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. In making bread, yeast creates bubbles of carbon dioxide gas inside the dough, causing bread to rise.

Design with Diatoms

The beautiful shapes at this exhibit are the shells of diatoms, single-celled plants that live in the ocean and fresh water. Diatoms come in hundreds of shapes. Nine different kinds have been arranged here in a snowflake pattern by an artist, Klaus Kemp and can be viewed through a Wentzscope©.

Euglena Moves with Whips

Euglena is unique in that it utilizes a structure which is commonly described as a whip. It uses this whip for locomotion. By beating its flagella, a hair-like whip, this microbe swims in ponds everywhere. Visitors spin a unique animation tool to watch the process in action.

Eye of the Needle

The eye of the needle is familiar to everyone as something extremely small—usually too small to get thread through easily. This exhibit has the world's largest needle's eye. It is 1,000 times bigger than actual size and forms a spacious arch for visitors to walk through. On its surface are three microorganisms constructed on the same scale: Paramecium, Amoeba, and Euglena. Looking at these microbes on the gigantic needle's eye gives a concrete idea of how small these microbes really are.

Friendly Microbes

What Do People, Cows, Soybean Plants and Termites Have in Common? All the organisms on this panel have "friendly" bacteria living inside them. People have bacteria in their intestines that aid in digestion and usually prevent harmful bacteria from taking hold. The bacteria found in the intestines of cows digest the cellulose in the grass and hay they eat. Soybeans have bacteria living in small nodes on their roots. The bacteria take nitrogen out of the air and make it available to the plant. Termites have intestinal protozoans, that in turn have bacteria inside of them. These bacteria may help digest the cellulose in the wood the termites eat.

How Microbes Make Us Sick

Germs make humans sick in two different ways: Bacteria and Viruses. A series of images show visitors the difference between what happens when bacteria and a virus attack cells. Bacteria and viruses cause illness in different ways. Certain kinds of bacteria have toxic secretions or wastes that disrupt the normal functioning of cells in the body. While a virus enters a cell and uses the cell to reproduce. Once the cell is overloaded with viruses it bursts thus releases them and killing the cell in the process. Few medications are effective in controlling viruses.

How Your Body Fights Disease

An interactive computer exhibit where visitors navigate through the program learning about the immune system organs, fighting disease, symptoms of infections and making antibodies and vaccines.

Live Bacteria Grows on These Plates

Visitors can compare the growth of bacteria on four petri dishes touched by a person's hand and allowed to grow for varying lengths of time. One petri dish is kept sterile (not touched) and is used as a control comparison for the experimental petri dishes. The bacteria growing on the petri dishes are seen in colonies (millions of bacteria in each) and appear as dots or small circles. Each colony started with a single bacterium that came from the hand that touched the petri dish.

Magi-Cam

At this exhibit, an object, such as a coin or even a hand, is placed under a lens that can be manipulated using focus, light, and zoom control buttons. A camera attached to the lens allows visitors to view the manipulated object on a monitor.

Microbes in the Sea

A satellite photograph of phytoplankton in the ocean demonstrate the density of these micro-oganisms seen as different colors and shades. There are many thousands of species of phytoplankton; enlarged photographs let visitors see several of these microbes in great detail.

Microbes In Your Nose

At this exhibit a large model of a cell from inside your nose is represented in the shape of a nose. Oval, square, circular and triangular shaped blocks on the nose cell model represent cell receptor sites. There is also an accompanying model of a virus that interlocks only with the circular receptor sites. When the virus interlocks with one of the circular receptor sites a sneeze, cough or sniffle can be heard representing viral infection of the cell. The virus will not interlock with any other shaped receptor sites indicating that a virus can only enter a cell that has receptor sites specific to that virus. Additionally, two of the circular receptor sites are blocked to the virus by a metal ring. This represents medicine that could block receptor sites and prevent viral infection.

Paramecium Moves with Cilia

By beating the small hair-like structures on its surface called cilia, this microbe swims in ponds everywhere. Visitors spin a unique animation tool to watch the process in actions.

Penicillin Alive

At this exhibit visitors view samples of original penicillin medicine bottles made by the first company to mass-produce the drug. Black and white photographs of the original production plant and of its uses during World War II are also on display. A New York pharmaceutical company, Chas. Pfizer & Co., was the first company to develop a method of producing penicillin in large quantities. They opened the world's first penicillin production plant in March 1944 to supply the drug for use in World War II. Penicillin was called "the drug that won the war" because without it, our troops would have suffered many more casualties from wound infections.

Refrigerator Rot

Visitors can open a real refrigerator and view fruits, vegetables and bread in various stages of decomposition (rotting). Time-lapse videos show the entire process of a bowl of fruit and a loaf of bread rotting. Various microbes are the cause of rotting. The most visible and commonly known microbe that eats fruit and bread is mold. At the same station, visitors can watch what is normally too slow to see in real time, fungi slowly grow into colonies on a piece of Roquefort cheese and bacteria multiplying in 30-second videos.

Reiber Glacite Models

In the 1930's Edwin H. Reiber invented a way to make large models of microorganisms by using glacite. Glacite is a material that has the flexibility of celluloid and is not as brittle as glass. The Reiber glacite models are noteworthy for their scientific accuracy as well as their artistic execution. The models were given to the NYSCI in 1989 for this microbiology exhibit by the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh.

SEM Views of Microbes

This exhibit features photographs of microorganisms taken with a high-powered scanning electron microscope (SEM). Images on the flip panels give clues on where these microbes live and what impact they may have on the environment or us.

Size and Scale of Microbes

A sculpture of a Euglena enlarged 35,000 times stands in the exhibition area. Visitors notice two striking characteristics of the Euglena - its long tail and its bright green color. This single-celled microbe has a single flagellum (a tail-like structure used for locomotion) at one end of its body which pulls it through the water. The distinctive green color is due to chlorophyll which enables Euglena to convert the Sun's energy into food by photosynthesis. On this sculpture visitors will also find a rod-like and sphere-shaped bacteria, also magnified 35,000 times. Finally, red squares and blue diamonds demonstrate the relative size of viruses.

World's Smallest Sea Shell : The Foram

Thousands of species of forams live in oceans all over the world. Every species makes its own kind of shell. When they die the foram will eventually erode into sand, or get compacted over time and form limestone, such as the white cliffs of Dover.

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