It’s that time of week once again so prepare to be both frustrated and, hopefully, entertained. This week, we cover the very big, the very small, and lots of things in between.
Round 1 – The largest…
- What is the largest organ of the human body?
- With the largest recorded specimen weighing in at 190 tonnes and 30 metres long, what is thought to be the largest animal ever to have lived?
- The 1960 Valdivia earthquake is the most powerful earthquake ever recorded, with a reading of 9.5 on the magnitude scale – in which country did it occur?
Round 2 – The smallest…
- Quarks, the most elementary unit of matter, come in how many different flavours?
- What is the world’s smallest ocean by area?
- The smallest bird in the world, the bee hummingbird, is found exclusively on which Caribbean island?
Round 3 – The Picture Round
Three more charades to solve – do that, and you should also manage to work out this week’s theme.
1.
2.
3.
Round 4 – The Sun
It would be nice to think we might be seeing a lot of the Sun in the coming months, although entertaing such thoughts is very much a triumph of hope over experience. In the mean time, here’s some questions about it.
- What is, by a considerable distance, the most numerous element making up the Sun’s chemical composition?
- Which English astronomer – and, not incidentally, the founder and first editor of Nature – first discovered helium, as a result of observing an unusual spectral line taken from near the edge of the Sun?
- Which German scientist gives his name to the dark absorption lines seen in the Sun’s spectrum?
Round 5 – Anagrams
This week’s anagrams are all scientific discoveries of the 20th century:
- NAIVE PICCOLO
- A RELEVANT YETI GIRL
- CRETIN LIT FONDANT
- CYNIC PROVIDES TUTU
- SINFUL SCENARIO
Good luck, have a great weekend, and look out for the answers on Monday.