Smithsonian magazine launched Museum Day Live!, in which Americans can visit an array of 1,400 museums for free, to encourage learning and the dissemination of knowledge. In other words, in hopes of making us a wee bit smarter.

For the eighth annual event on Saturday, Atlantans can check out 11 metro institutions. And speaking of thinking, how sharp is it that one of the museums features a new exhibit exploring how our trillions and trillions of cells work together to make our brains click, among other essential tasks?

The timely, brainy, hands-on exhibit is “Cells: The Universe Inside Us” at the David J. Sencer CDC Museum. It includes a giant cell that visitors can walk into, the opportunity to use a virtual scalpel to cut a worm in half and watch it regenerate and the chance to design a cancer-fighting nanoparticle in a virtual lab.

Other metro Museum Day options include Archibald Smith Plantation Home, Barrington Hall and Bulloch Hall in Roswell; Autrey Mill Nature Preserve and Heritage Center, Johns Creek; Center for Puppetry Arts Museum, Hammonds House Museum and High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Heritage Sandy Springs Museum; Marietta Museum of History; and Hudgens Center for the Arts, Duluth.

Feel like a day trip? Sites within a couple hours’ drive include: Booth Western Art Museum and Bartow History Museum, Cartersville; Folk Pottery Museum of Northeast Georgia, Sautee-Nacoochee; Reinhardt University’s Funk Heritage Center, Waleska; Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, Hay House and Ocmulgee National Monument, Macon; Madison Museum of Fine Art, Madison; Foxfire Museum and Heritage Center, Mountain City; and Western & Atlantic Railroad Tunnel and Heritage Museum, Tunnel Hill.

To participate, download a free Museum Day ticket for two people (per household) at smithsonian.com/museumdaylive.

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