Travel Tip: Pop Culture and Cinema in United States
The Power of Poison

The astonishing variety of evolutionary adaptations among toxic plants and animals is at the heart of The Power of Poison,  an exhibition that also examines humans’ attempts to understand poisons’ potency, how the science of detecting poison developed, and how researchers today use venoms and other natural toxins to develop new medical treatments.

Visitors will:

Encounter some of history’s most puzzling poisoning cases and take part in a live theater presentation to help unravel a real-world case of poisoning

Discover extraordinary organisms using poison in their daily struggle to survive while walking through a re-created Colombian forest

Examine an “enchanted” book that resembles an ancient botanical volume and watch animations of well-known poisonous plant species “magically” appear with each turn of the page

See several tales and legends re-created in life-size dioramas, including the trio of witches dropping gruesome ingredients into a boiling cauldron from a famous scene in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Consider some of history’s most notorious poisoners and poisonings that still puzzle today, including Cleopatra’s death and Napoleon’s decline.