Dance Dance DNA Revolution

This is the awesomest thing ever.

At the scripps aquarium near San Diego, they devote half the space to teaching kids about science. In a wing devoted to explaining gene expression they had some stuff about DNA and the coolest thing was this video game that taught you about building blocks of life, then proceeded to a real DDR game where you have to step to the DNA parts being shown on screen.

The best part was when one of the 20 amino acids were built, it would say the name. So you'd see A T T G C and so on... and then it would shout "Cysteine!"

It was mostly lost on the kids, who just wanted to play some DDR, but it was a very clever idea. My hat's off to the scientists that came up with this idea.

update: here is the aquarium research site describing the exhibit.