Microbes: Invisible Invaders, Amazing Allies debuts in the Putnam Museum’s Main Gallery on Saturday, October 2. The interactive, 3,000-square-foot exhibition examines what microbes are, what they look like, the history of disease, emerging diseases and how research is helping find cures that save lives.
Visitors can interactively explore the microbial universe with the technological magic of high definition volumetric display bringing life to full-color viruses and bacteria that appear to float in space. Leading-edge technology allows visitors to see crystallography of the HIV, herpes and polio viruses represented as “virtual” 3-D photography. Through high-tech video games, visitors can combat bacteria with antibiotics, use virtual reality, help microbes gobble up oil spills, and participate in a question/answer quiz show about microbes’ good deeds.
Finally, exhibit visitors are given the opportunity to embark on the “new frontier” and meet researchers in 3-D holography as they describe their careers in science. Based on the book The Invisible Invaders by noted science and medical writer Peter Radetsky, the Microbes exhibit is committed to helping people better understand the whole story of microbes–both the good and the bad.
The exhibit is nationally sponsored by Pfizer Inc and produced by Evergreen Exhibitions in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is locally sponsored by Scott County Regional Authority and Trinity Regional Health System.
Putnam Museum & IMAX Theatre
1717 West 12th Street
Davenport, Iowa 52804
www.putnam.org