Science World has teamed up with Rethink Canada to produce a number of ads for our "We Can Explain" and "Now you Know" campaigns. The goal of these campaigns is not only to increase awareness of our organization and introduce our "personality" to the community, but also to support our mission of engaging the general public with science in a way that is both thought-provoking and fun.
Science World Ad Campaigns
Ads – 2011
TV Ads
In 2011, to promote our Extreme Dinosaurs feature exhibition, we did this little stunt based on the scientific estimation that the Tyrannosaurus Rex chomped with 6000 lbs of force.
Discoveries over the past year have challenged this previous estimation, stating that it is more likely that T-Rex actually had a biting force closer to 12,800 lbs--about the equivalent of the weight of a fully grown adult T-Rex. Read more.
Radio Ads
We've unearthed 160 million year old dinosaur vomit.
Listen to this ad at Rethink Communications.
British scientists working in a quarry in Peterborough discovered vomit containing the remains of dozens of squid-like shellfish that lived in abundance in the seas around what is now Britain. These shelfish are known to have been eaten in great numbers by ichthyosaurs, large marine reptiles (related to land-dwelling dinosaurs) common in the warm seas of the Jurassic era and similar in size and shape to dolphins. Read more about the discovery.
Ads - 2010
Radio Ads
The wingspan of the Indonesian fruitbat equals the height of film star Sylvester Stallone.
Listen to this ad at Rethink Communications.
Listen to this ad at Rethink Communications.
There are lots of fruit bats in Indonesia and southeast Asia. The large flying fox can have a wingspan of around 5 ½ feet, or 165 cm. Sylvester Stallone’s height is reported as anywhere from 5 feet 7 inches to 5 feet 10 inches. To learn more about flying foxes try this link.
A cockroach can live for nine days without its head.
Listen to this ad at Rethink Communications.
A cockroach could live a long time, perhaps a month, without its head. The only reason we need our head for basic survival is:
- We breathe through our mouth or nose and the breathing rhythm is controlled in our brain. Cutting off our head would interfere with breathing although that could be maintained with a respirator.
- Cutting off our head could lead to blood loss and a drop in blood pressure which would result in death due to lack of blood transport of oxygen and nutrition to our tissues.
- Cutting off our head would prevent us from eating and we would die of starvation pretty quickly.
All of these reasons for dying are not present in cockroaches and many insects in general:
- Cockroaches breathe through spiracles which are in each body segment and the blood does not carry oxygen to the tissues. The spiracles deliver air to each cell of the body through a set of tubes called tracheae. The brain does not control the breathing through the spiracles.
- The cockroach does not have blood pressure the way a mammal does and so cutting off the head does not lead to uncontrolled bleeding.
- The cockroach is a poikilotherm or cold blooded animal. They need much less food and a one day meal would be enough to last them a whole month as long as they were not extremely active. Without a head the cockroach would just sit around without doing anything much. All this along with a cool temperature could allow the cockroach to last about a month without need for their head, as long as they did not get infected with a mold, bacterium or virus, which could kill them prematurely.
Professor Joseph G. Kunkel, in the Biology Department of U. Massachusetts Amherst keeps a FAQ about cockroaches, including this fact.
It takes 12 bees their entire lifetime to make a single tablespoon of honey.
Listen to this ad at Rethink Communications.
This website has a lot of information about bees and beekeeping. The author suggests that the average bee produces about 1/12 of a tablespoon of honey in her lifetime. The honeybee centre is in Surrey and is a good resource for things bee. For more information, please visit honeybeecentre.com.
