NightLife returns to the Academy of Sciences

By Jen Houghton
The Guardsman

NightLife is to museums what Virgin America is to airlines: A little more lax, a lot more fun, and when you leave you can’t wait to experience it again. Much like the young, hip airline that made flying seductive again, this weekly event at the California Academy of Sciences convinces guests that learning about our planet is sexy.

The lights are dim, the music is pulsing and drinks are flowing from numerous satellite bars throughout the building. The crowd varies widely in age and everyone in attendance is excited and obviously looking for a museum visit outside of the ordinary.

NightLife kicked off another year of music, entertainment and science Jan. 14. The event, held every Thursday from 6 to 10 p.m. for guests 21 and older, has so much to see and experience that a repeat visit is almost guaranteed.

The museum holds the world’s largest all-digital planetarium with shows every hour from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. This is not your grade school planetarium.

The show, “Journey to the Stars,” is 30 minutes of breath-taking IMAX-style imagery and surround sound illustrating the birth and death of a star, focusing on our own sun. Produced by the American Museum of Natural History and narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, the show contains many real life images so awe-inspiring that they’re often indistinguishable from the digital simulations.

The show ends in a more typical planetarium fashion, with a display of the current San Francisco night sky which visitors can later view through telescopes from the rooftop of the museum.

On the main level, the four-story tropical rainforest is almost as stunning from the outside as it is from inside the glass walls.

There are 1,600 live animals inside, many of which are roaming free. While climbing the spiral walkway through a living reproduction of the humid rainforests of Madagascar and Costa Rica, curious guests can find miniature frogs on leaves and watch baby birds at feeding time with their mother, close enough to touch — if that were allowed.

Guests get a whole new perspective of the dome as they ride the glass elevator down to the flooded Amazon forest.

There, visitors can see living replicas of swamps and California’s underwater coast. Also in the aquarium, with brightly colored coral and fish and glowing blue water, is the stunning Philippine Coral Reef, which often serves as an impromptu dance floor on weeks that the aquarium hosts a DJ.

At the Islands of Evolution exhibit, producer and DJ Michael Anthony, accompanied by a saxophone player and bongo drums, catered to an energetic crowd of dancers and spectators.
The event first strikes you as a great first date spot or a place to begin an evening with friends, but it buzzes from beginning to end, making it tough to leave for your second destination. Almost every exhibit at NightLife is do-not-miss, and many will surely draw guests back. It’s official: science is sexy.

NightLife is a weekly event on Thursdays from 6 to 10 p.m. Entry is $12 for general admission and $10 for members. Passes for planetarium shows are given out on a first come, first serve basis. Final entry to the rainforest is at 7:30 p.m. This is a 21 and older event.