It’s time once again to welcome in the weekend with some quizzing fun. Questions, puzzles and some rather lovely pictures of World Heritage Sites await:
Round 1 – True or False?
A simple start to today’s quiz – you simply have to identify whether each of the statements below are true or false – so you have at least a 50% chance for every question. As a hint, there are three true statements and three false ones:
1. When Jupiter’s great red spot was discovered in 1835 its discoverer, Prussian astronomer Albert Würzburg, initially kept it to himself for fear of offending the Prussian king, Friedrich Wilhelm III, who himself had a prominent red blemish on his face.
2. If left undisturbed, snails can sleep for as long as three years, only waking when the conditions are amenable to them.
3. There are no known contemporary portraits of Robert Hooke so no one can really be sure what he looked like. The only known portrait of him got “lost” when his arch rival Isaac Newton moved the Royal Society headquarters shortly after his death.
4. As well as being the discoverer of X-rays, Wilhelm Rontgen was a passionate Evangelical Christian. He was well known for his continual attempts to convert his fellow scientists at conferences around the world and he originally called X-rays “Christ Rays”.
5. The Chinese field marten, a rodent which feeds exclusively on sugar beet, is said to produce excrement that tastes of the finest caramel – however, it is so rich in toxins that eating even small quantities can kill an adult human within 4 hours.
6. During the Voyage of the Beagle, Charles Darwin spent several days in Patagonia searching without success for the elusive Lesser Rhea, only to realise that he’d just eaten one for his dinner.
Round 2 – The Human Body
It’s all very well being able to chat fluently and easily about endangered biomes or the chirality of subatomic particles – but how well do you know your own body? Time to find out.
1. How many bones are there in an adult human body?
2. As you may expect, the most common elements in our bodies are Oxygen, Carbon and Hydrogen, in that order – but what element is the fourth most common?
3. In which organs of the body would you find:
(a) the Islets of Langerhans
(b) the Hippocampus
(c) the Major calyx
Round 3 – The Picture Round
Of the 962 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, 188 belong to the natural world. Below are pictures of three of them – can you identify them?
1. 
2.
{credit}chensiyuan{/credit}
3.
{credit}Reinhard Jahn{/credit}
Round 4 – Mnemonics
For generations, students have used mnemonics to help them remember otherwise bewildering lists or sequences. Can you identify what these mnemonics are designed to aid memory retention of?
1. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos
2. Pregnant Camels Ordinarily Sit Down Carefully . Perhaps Their Joints Creak
3. Idiotic Penguins Make Antarctica Too Cold
Round 5 – Scrambled Scientists
In each question in this round, the names of two famous scientists have been mixed together – all in the correct order, so no anagram skills required, but with spacing removed. Can you work out the two scientists in each case?
1. wriolbeliratbmhaoryvleye
2. nihukmolpahritydaesvlya
3. aelrfrweidnsrucshsreolweadlinlgaecer
Good luck, have fun – and if you have any other favourite mnemonics feel free to share them here. Answers on Monday…
Answers as follows:
Round 1 – True or False
1. FALSE
2. TRUE
3. TRUE
4. FALSE
5. FALSE
6. TRUE
Round 2 – The Human Body
1. There are 206 bones in an adult human body
2. There are lots of amino acids in our bodies – which goes a long way to explaining why Nitrogen is the fourth most common element to be found there.
3. (a) pancreas (b) brain (c) kidneys
Round 3 – The Picture Round
1. This an aerial shot of the Great Barrier Reef
2. This is the Grand Canyon
3. These waterfalls are the Iguazu Falls on the border of Brazil and Argentina
Round 4 – Mnemonics
1. Mercury, Venus, Earth etc. – it is of course the planets of the solar system
2. Precambrian, Cambrian, Ordovician, and so on – as long as you can remember what each ‘C’ stands for then this will aid your memory of the order of geological periods.
3. This one stands for “Interphase, Prophase, Metaphase, Anaphase, Telophase, Cytokinesis”, and is to help remember the lifecycle of cells
Round 5 – Scrambled Scientists
In a sense, the answers were right in front of your face for this one. How did you get on?
1. William Harvey and Robert Boyle
2. Nikolai Tesla and Humphry Davy
3. Erwin Schrodinger and Alfred Russel Wallace
There’ll be more of the same to look forward to at the same time this Friday…