Erica P. Johnson
Apreschool girl with black braids presses a finger to a disk that twists a brightly lit DNA model, transforming its ladder shape into a double helix. Her head bops from side to side in wonder as the towering DNA coils and straightens. When a bigger boy claims her place, the girl joins meandering moms and dads with their charges as they twist knobs, open flaps, and simply stare at flashing helixes and orange information boards: all a part of the museum exhibit called "Genome: The Secret of How Life Works" at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.
Royalty and the rich gather art and natural objects into private collections, but the public museum does not exist as an institution.
Magnificent and unique objects begin to be displayed in semipublic "Cabinets of Curiosities" or "Wunderkammer." The most famous is the still-intact "Green Vault" in Dresden.
The ...
