The selfies that kids took recently on a visit to the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre in Johannesburg were actually ‘cell-fies’, which photographed their own DNA.

SciBono was one of 12 centres around the world to host this year’s World Biotech Tour (WBT), designed to get kids interested in science and technology careers. The host cities presented special demonstrations alongside their usual exhibits, and science communicator Morgan Ramaili was intriguing the visitors to his cell-fie stand with his UGene software. He helped them take a swab of tissue sample from inside their cheeks, add it to a pipette of water and swirl it around in a centrifuge. Or a salad spinner, as the kids called it. Then he showed them how to take the cells that had separated out, place them on a slide and tinge them with food dye to make them more visible. Finally, they used the magnifier on their cellphones and took a photograph as a permanent record of their own DNA.