After a week off (did you miss us?), it’s Friday quiz time again – this week, there’s vaccines, cunningly-disguised elements and animal artistry among the quizzical challenges on offer. But first up, a look at the many ingenious ways animals are able to communicate with each other.
Round 1 – Animal Communication
Who needs Skype when you can perform a waggle dance?
- Which form of animal communication is used by species such as the common shrew, the vagrant shrew and the black-nest swiftlet but is most commonly associated with bats and whales?
- What kind of creatures perform “waggle dances” to alert other members of their colony to the location of useful resources?
- What was the name, based on a pun on the name of a famed linguist, given to the chimpanzee at the centre of a famous 1970s experiment, in which he was allegedly taught to use sign language to express a variety of thoughts and desires?
Round 2 – A to Z
We’re up to P – R for this week.
- Which P is the phenomenon which was the subject of a groundbreaking paper by Einstein, earning him the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics?
- Which Q are bright, distant astronomical objects thought to derive from black holes, and which were once known as radio stars?
- Which R is the spherical structure found in all living cells which serves as the site of biological protein synthesis?
Round 3 – The Picture Round
In this week’s picture round, you’ll see a variety of different animal artefacts – you simply need to identify the animal that created each one:
1.
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2.
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3.
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Round 4 – Vaccines
Vaccines constitute one of the greatest achievements of medical science, if not the single greatest, and they have saved the lives of countless millions of people over the years. How much do you know about some of the pioneers of vaccination?
- Who was the English scientist and physician who pioneered the smallpox vaccine, famously inoculating an 8-year old boy with cowpox as part of his experiments?
- Who was the American virologist of the 20th century best known for discovering and developing the polio vaccine?
- American bacteriologist Pearl Kendrick is best known for developing the vaccine for what infant disease, caused by the Bordetella pertussis bacteria?
Round 5 – Hidden elements
Something a bit different for Round 5 today. Below you are going to see a paragraph of more or less complete gibberish (seriously, it’s utter drivel) – however, within the otherwise banal text are hidden the names of fifteen different elements – how many can you spot?
“Brad – I, um, need to talk to you one-on-one. I saw Mario dine with Caleb or one of his retinue at the leading Cairo night club ‘Rizzi ‘n’ Carlos’ the other day. I had to leave a message on his car bonnet explaining that, if he wants to take up Latin, umpteen better teachers are around, even if some, like me, are growing old. He can do better than the moronic Kelly, or Marco Balthazar. And unlike ‘Algebra Don’, a notorious tyrant, I’m on your side.”
That’s all for this week – answers will be revealed, as usual, on Monday. Have a great weekend!
For round 5 I found 56.
Hi Bob, are you talking about the chemical symbols rather than the full names? There are 15 full English names of elements hidden in the passage – so you should be looking for ‘molybdenum’, say, rather than just ‘Mo’.
It was just the symbols, but you didn’t specify that. Next week’s quiz, perhaps?
I did also find the 15 full names, so I can feel fully smug.
I think I’d want to argue that ‘names’ and ‘symbols’ are entirely different things – and I did specify names in the question. Anyway, glad you got the 15 names I had in mind!
This week’s answers as follows:
Round 1 – Animal Communication
1. All these animals use echolocation.
2. Honey bees perform waggle dances.
3. The chimpanzee who supposedly learned sign language (although the claims are disputed) was named Nim Chimpsky after, of course, Benjamin Whorf. Sorry – after, of course, Noam Chomsky.
Round 2 – A to Z
1. Einstein won his prize not for relativity but for the photoelectric effect.
2. These are quasars.
3. Protein synthesis occurs in the ribosome.
Round 3 – The Picture Round
1. This is the lodge of a beaver.
2. This is a termite mound.
3. …And this is the bower of a bowerbird.
Round 4 – Vaccines
1. Edward Jenner pioneered the smallpox vaccine.
2. Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine.
3. Pearl Kendrick developed the vaccine for whooping cough.
Round 5 – Hidden elements
How many did you get? The fifteen hidden element names are bolded below:
“Brad – I, um, need to talk to you one-on-one. I saw Mario dine with Caleb or one of his retinue at the leading Cairo night club ‘Rizzi ‘n’ Carlos’ the other day. I had to leave a message on his car bonnet explaining that, if he wants to take up Latin, umpteen better teachers are around, even if some, like me, are growing old. He can do better than the moronic Kelly, or Marco Balthazar. And unlike ‘Algebra Don’, a notorious tyrant, I’m on your side.”
So, just to be clear, that’s: radium, neon, iodine, boron, tin, lead, iron, zinc, carbon, platinum, gold, nickel, cobalt, radon, antimony.
Look out for the next quiz this Friday.