Science Festival Urges Philly To Get Its Nerd On
By Ian Bush
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Tickets are now available for the dozens of free and paid events that make up the nine-day Philadelphia Science Festival.
Starting April 22nd, parts of the city will be transformed into a living laboratory.
"You start to see this white film create itself on top," said The Franklin Institute's Mickey Maley as he mixed mashed-up strawberries with dish soap in a zip-top bag, and strained it through cheesecloth into a glass:
"This is actually the extracted DNA from the strawberry starting to clump together."
Of course, there's DNA on a lot of stuff you touch, but to hold it and see it?
"It's really important to be able to understand a little more about how DNA is a real thing -- the building blocks of life," said Maley.
Franklin Institute CEO Larry Dubinski says other activities include a teddy bear health clinic where kids become doctor or nurse to their favorite stuffed toy; the 21-and-over crowd can brew an experimental beer.
"We're going to bring it all together so no matter what your age is, you're going to learn something about it," said Dubinski.
The Great Plaza at Penn's Landing is host to the closing carnival on Saturday, April 30.
Details at PhilaScienceFestival.org.
