If you want to study the inner workings of a large, venomous arachnid, there's an easier way than trying to go out and catch one. This large tarantula anatomy model comes with everything you need to explore the hidden mechanisms of one of nature's most impressive arthropods. Half puzzle, half model, this kit can be assembled, disassembled, and put back together as many times as you want. With 33 masterfully detailed pieces, the model demonstrates how all of the internal organs of a tarantula fit together into that small hairy body. Included is a display stand and an illustrated guide book.

This delightful mug is a great way to commemorate your visit to the Exploratorium. Featuring our logo with the signature enlarged O, this eight-ounce porcelain mug features a whimsical bird design beckoning the curious to come inside and explore.

Throughout the month of March 2012, when you order $50 or more, we'll add this mug to your order free of charge. It's just our way of thanking you for your continued support and enthusiasm for the Exploratorium.

By Oliver Sacks

With his trademark compassion and erudition, Oliver Sacks, whom The New York Times has called "the poet laureate of medicine," explores the place music occupies in the brain and how it affects the human condition. In Musicophilia, he examines the powers of music through the individual experiences of patients, musicians, and everyday people. Among them: a surgeon who is struck by lightning and suddenly becomes obsessed with Chopin; people with "amusia," to whom a symphony sounds like the clattering of pots and pans; and a man whose memory spans only seven seconds - for everything but music. Dr. Sacks describes how music can animate people with Parkinson's disease who cannot otherwise move, give words to stroke patients who cannot otherwise speak, and calm and organize people who are deeply disoriented by Alzheimer's or schizophenia.

Music can be inspiring, moving us to the heights or depths of emotion - and it can also be our best medicine. In Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks tells us why.

By Daniel Rosenberg and Anthony Grafton

From the most ancient images to the contemporary, the line serves as a central figure in the representation of time - in almanacs, calendars, charts, and graphs of all sorts. Even our everyday speech is filled with talk of time having a "before" and an "after" or being "long" and "short." The timeline is such a familiar part of our mental furniture that it is sometimes hard to remember that we ever acquired it in the first place. And yet, in its modern form, the timeline is not even 250 years old. The story of what came before has until now never been fully told.

Cartographies of Time is the first comprehensive history of graphic representations of time in Europe and the United States from 1450 to the present. Authors Daniel Rosenberg and Anthony Grafton have crafted a lively history featuring fanciful characters and unexpected twists and turns. From medieval manuscripts to websites, Cartographies of Time features a wide variety of timelines that in their own unique ways - curving, crossing, branching - defy conventional thinking about the form. A fifty-four-foot-long timeline from 1753 is mounted on a scroll and encased in a protective box, while another timeline uses the different parts of the human body to show the genealogies of Jesus Christ and the rulers of Saxony. Ladders created by Catholic and Protestant missionaries illustrate Bible stories in a vertical format to encourage American Indians in Oregon to convert. Also included is the April 1912 Marconi North Atlantic Communication chard, which tracked ships, including the Titanic, at points in time rather than by their geographic location. There are even little-known works by famous figures, including a historical chronology by the mapmaker Gerardus Mercator and a chronological board game patented by Mark Twain. This lavishly illustrated edition is a revelation to anyone interested in the role visual forms have played in our evolving conception of history.

A Book About the Exploratorium's New Campus at Piers 15/17, San Francisco, California

Written by Kristina Woolsey, Ph.D., Project Director for the Piers 15/17 Project

In Spring 2013 the Exploratorium is moving from its current location, where it has flourished for more than 40 years, to an exciting new home on the San Francisco waterfront. This move promises to change not just the waterfront, but also the Exploratorium's future potential. Learn about the plans for this exciting new facility, which broke ground in November 2011, and see how the Exploratorium will expand its facilities, public offerings, and R&D activities at this remarkable new site.



By supporting the vision of an exciting, accepting place where everyone can come to explore the world around them, the Exploratorium's members, partners, friends, and supporters have helped create a unique and far-reaching institution that has deep roots in the San Francisco Bay Area.



Breaking ground at our new location on the Embarcadero is an exciting moment for the entire Exploratorium Community, including staff and Board members - many of whom have been with the Exploratorium since its early days. This is a moment made possible by the support of many civic leaders, community members, and generous donors, all of whom are confident that the Exploratorium has only just begun its contribution to the world.

We are excited to take our place near the heart of the city, and look forward to strengthening and growing our relationships, both locally and globally.

By David A. Carter

Bugs of every hue pop off each page in this clever book that is sure to delight pre-readers again and again while introducing the concept of color.

Ages 1 to 5.

By Hugh Aldersey-Williams

Like the alphabet or the zodiac, the periodic table of the chemical elements has a permanent place in our imagination. But aside from the handful of common ones (iron, carbon, copper, gold), the elements themselves remain wrapped in mystery. We do not know what most of them look like, how they exist in nature, how they got their names, or of what use they are to us. Welcome to a dazzling tour through history and literature, science and art. In Periodic Tales, you'll meet iron that rains from the heavens and neon as it lights its way to vice. You'll learn how lead can tell your future and why zinc may one day line your coffin. You'll discover what connects the bones in your body with the White House in Washington, the glow of a streetlight with the salt on your dinner table.

From ancient civilizations to contemporary couture, from the oxygen of publicity to the phosphorous in your pee, the elements are near and far and all around us. Unlocking their astonishing secrets and colorful pasts, Periodic Tales is a passionate journey through mines and artists' studios, to factories and cathedrals, into the woods and to the sea to discover the true stories of these fascinating but mysterious building blocks of the universe.

This magic lamp will surely brighten your night and your spirits. As it gently winks and blinks you'll fall asleep like a child to happy memories of glowing fireflies, warm summer nights, and lazy vacation days.

If you're a budding spy, what better way to conceal your clandestine activities than to miniaturize your secret agent arsenal? Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction 2 provides fully illustrated step-by-step instructions for building 30 different spy weapons and surveillance tools, including:

•Paper Dart Watch
•Rubber Band Derringer
•Pushpin Dart
•Toothpaste Periscope
•Bionic Ear
•Pen Blowgun
•Mint Tin Catapult
•Cotton Swab .38 Special
•Paper Throwing Star
•And more!

Once you've assembled your weaponry, the author provides a number of ideas on how to hide your stash - inside a deck of cards, a false-bottom soda bottle, or a cereal box briefcase - and targets for practicing your spycraft, including a flip-down firing range, a fake security camera, and sharks with laser beams.

By William Fotheringham

The world of cycling is one of the death-defying feats and obscure mechanical oddities, heroics and geekiness in equal measure. In Cyclopedia, renowned two-wheel aficionado and acclaumed sportswriter William Fotheringham delves deep into this world to unearth amazing facts and enthralling anecdotes.

This essential book is an A to Z compendium of everything you could ever want to know about the bicycle, from the history of the Tour de France to Chris Hoy's dominance of the Beijing velodrome, from the origins of the quick-release system to the diet that powered Graeme Obree to the world hour record, from Lance Armstrong's fabled career to the slang words used for performance-enhancing substances, from the literature of cycling to the perils of vicious dogs.

Cyclopedia has all the equipment, the races, the chases, the faces, the places, the drugs, the sex, and the scandals to convert any amateur cyclist into a full-fledger bike expert.