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Museums Engage In Informative Twitter Debate

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

And now for a bit of fun. Imagine an epic battle between science and history. The Science Museum in London pitted against the city's Natural History Museum using only items from their exhibits as weapons. Who would win? That's what one person asked last week during the museum's #AskACurator day on Twitter. The museums took the challenge and launched into a Twitter war. For the purposes of this dramatic radio portrayal of the battle royale, the two museums will be played by two Brits - Gemma Watters as the Science Museum and James Hider as the Natural History Museum.

JAMES HIDER: We have dinosaurs. No contest.

GEMMA WATTERS, BYLINE: The Natural History Museum is full of old fossils, but we have robots, a spitfire and ancient poisons. Boom.

HIDER: OK. We weren't going to do this, but here come the locusts - Phymateus viridipes, Phymateus karschi and Ornithacris pictula magnifica.

WATTERS: Obviously, we won't use this DDT insect spray on display in our new mathematics gallery. So instead, we'll fight them off with this giant killer - a British made insect swatter circa 1900 - 1930.

HIDER: Send in the sea dragons from "The Book Of The Great Sea Sea-Dragons" by Thomas Hawkins, 1840.

WATTERS: We were all set to call it a draw, but then we saw this. Turns out we have a dinosaur, and it's 3-D printed.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: In my opinion, dinosaur trumps sea dragon. In the end, science and nature declared themselves both winners and we agree.

(SOUNDBITE OF RAMIN DJAWADI'S "MAIN TITLE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.