Group Reservations

With 8.5 acres of exhibits and activities, the Science Museum of Minnesota is the perfect place to bring groups of all ages! Discover superheroes of science, thought-provoking exhibitions, hands-on experiments, fan-favorites like Sportsology and the Dinosaurs & Fossils Gallery, traveling exhibits, and more, all in downtown St. Paul.

Hours

The Museum is open daily from 9: 30 am to 4: 30 pm.

Group visits may be scheduled during any day or time the Museum is open.

Group prices

Groups of fifteen or more receive $ 2 off general ticket rates. The discounted rate is:

Adult (18 + ) $27.95

Child (4-17)   $17.95

Children 3 and under are free.

K-12 School Groups

K-12 school groups qualify for special field trip rates. Please call the Science Museum Contact Center at (651) 221 -9444 for more information.

Make Your Group Purchase

Discounted General Exhibit and Omni theater tickets for groups of 15 or more can be reserved by calling the Science Museum Contact Center at (651) 221 - 9444. You can also purchase discounted General Exhibit tickets for groups of 15 or more online at 8mm. org tickets, where the discount will be automatically added and displayed in your cart at checkout. Group discount Omni theater tickets are not currently available online; please call the Contact Center to purchase.

Safety Guidelines

❖ Masks are welcomed and encouraged for all visitors;

❖ Advance reservations required;

❖ Safe distancing reminders throughout the museum;

❖ A state-of-the-art HVAC system and careful monitoring to ensure excellent indoor air quality.

Several years ago, a cousin I had lost touch with since I was a teenager dropped by my house. At the living room entrance, he stopped in dead silence, his eyes fixed on the bookshelves covering the entire back wall. “Have you read them all?” he asked me, almost frightened. “Yes,” I said, “just about.” He shook his head in silence, as if this was a feat (技艺) that had demanded some effort. As for him, he had had to leave school at fourteen, working wherever he could. His family did not have books. I only ever recalled seeing the comic book Tarzan lying around on the table.

I often recall this scene with my cousin with unease. It hides another violent one. I was between fifteen and eighteen years old. I must have blamed my father for “not being interested in anything”, for reading only Paris-Normandie, the local newspaper. Usually so calm and tolerant regarding the rudeness of his only daughter, he replied seriously, “Books are good for you. But as for me, I don’t need them to live.”

These words stretch across time, fixed inside me, like a pain and an unbearable reality. I understood very well what my father meant. Reading Alexander Dumas, Flaubert, Camus would not have served any practical purpose in his work as a cafe owner. On the other hand, in the future he hoped for me, he vaguely knew that books held weight, and that they formed part of a defining package — “cultural baggage” — that included the theatre, the opera and winter sports — a superior social world. I understood all that and it was unacceptable. I refused to think that the world of books would stay forever closed to the human being who was dearest to me.

As I think about reasons for reading, my father’s words come back to me insistently, like a personal and unsolvable contradiction. No, to read is not to live but I have always lived with books.

Last April, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, attempted a takeover of Twitter, for $ 44 billion, which quickly turned into public controversy and court battles. But the most interesting part of the story is the more fundamental question: Why would Musk want to buy Twitter in the first place?

If you look at the size of Twitter, its appeal isn’t obvious. The company makes a relatively small profit each year, and in terms of the number of users, Twitter has around 436 million users every month, which is still a long way behind the likes of Facebook (near three billion), Instagram (two billion), and TikTok (one billion). So why does Musk want to spend a considerable amount of money on Twitter?

The answer might be what makes Twitter so interesting: it carries enormous cultural power and has an unmatched ability to shift the course of news and culture. Twitter’s cultural power is easy to see. Click on any random news article, and there’s a good chance that somewhere in the text, it’s quoting what someone said on Twitter.

What makes the platform important is essentially its clients. Twitter is the place where the most powerful and influential people like to hang out. Because Twitter is mostly based on short, text-based posts, it is perfect for conveying information, an argument, or a joke, at enormous speed, making it extremely useful for the likes of politicians, journalists, executives and celebrities.

What Twitter is really good at is acting as a global watercooler-a persistent backchannel for gossip (流言蜚语), jokes and informal connections. It’s a place where new ideas emerge, or arguments happen, and because the people doing the gossiping are important, influential types, what happens on Twitter can actually affect the rest of the world. I think this explains why Elon Musk might want to pay big money for it. If you own Twitter, you suddenly have a say in the world’s most important watercooler conversation.

Are you among the one in three Americans who gulps down a multivitamin every morning, probably with a sip of water? The truth about this popular habit may be hard to swallow. “Most people would be better off just drinking a full glass of water and skipping the vitamin,” says Dr. Pieter Cohen, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. In addition to saving money, you’ll have the satisfaction of not succumbing to misleading marketing strategies.

That’s because for the average American adult, a daily multivitamin doesn’t provide any meaningful health benefit, as noted recently by the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). Their review, which analyzed 84 studies involving nearly 700,000 people, found little or no evidence that taking vitamin and mineral supplements (营养片)helps prevent cancer and cardiovascular disease that can lead to heart attacks, nor do they help prevent an early death.

However, this is not always the case. Highly restrictive diets, or certain weight-loss surgeries that cause poor nutrient absorption are examples of reasons why a multivitamin or individual vitamins might be recommended. A daily vitamin D supplement may be necessary when a person gets insufficient sun exposure. Your doctor may recommend an iron supplement if you have anemia, a low red blood cell count.

Then why do people place too much reliance on vitamins? “They are very inexpensive to make, so the companies can sink lots of money into advertising,” says Dr. Cohen. But because the FDA regulates dietary supplements as food and not as prescription (处方药) or over-the-counter drugs, the agency only closely monitors claims regarding the treatment of disease. For example, supplement makers cannot say that their product “lowers heart disease risk”. But their labels are allowed to include phrases such as “promotes a healthy heart” or “supports immunity”, as well as vague promises about improving fatigue and low motivation.

“Supplement manufacturers are allowed to market their products as if they have benefits when no benefit actually exists,” says Dr. Cohen. He considers it wise to note the legally required disclaimer on each product: “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.” Although multivitamins aren’t helpful, at least they’re not harmful. But the money people spend on them could be better spent on purchasing healthy foods.