Happy New Year, quizzers! Welcome to the first quiz of 2013.
Round 1 – What’s in a Name?
A round about names, naming and namesakes.
- What is the only element to be named after a scientist who was still alive at the time of the naming?
- What was the name given to the 5000 year old “iceman” found in the Tyrolean Alps in 1991, a named shared by a DJ who became a one-hit wonder ten years later with a song that became particularly (some would say irritatingly) popular with fans at the 2002 World Cup?
- In 2005, scientists at Cornell University made headlines when they named three new species of slime-mold beetle after what three prominent people?
Round 2 – Moons
- Phobos is one of the two moons of Mars – what is the other?
- The moons of which planet are named after characters from the works of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope?
- Which moon of the solar system was named after the mythical cup-bearer of the Greek Gods?
Round 3 – The Picture Round
Following on from the Christmas quiz, and in what is likely to become a recurring feature, today’s picture round is charade-type clues – simply put what you see in the pictures together to come up with the answers. This week, the theme is scientific discoveries, ideas or concepts from the 20th century:
1.
{credit}AndrewKepert / Stilfehler / Bernard Landgraf{/credit}
2.
{credit}PD / Visa Kopu / PD{/credit}
3.
{credit}Sjonge / PD / Alvesgaspar{/credit}
Round 4 – -ologies
It’s fairly obvious what a climatologist or a mineralogist will study – but how much do you know about some rather less obvious -ologies?
- What type of insects would an acridologist study?
- What is the name given to the study of the microscopic anatomy of cells and tissues of plants and animals?
- Nephology is the branch of meteorology dealing with what?
Round 5 – Groupthink
In this round, you will see sixteen words which fit neatly into four themed groups of four. Your task is to sort out the words into the appropriate groups, and identify the theme of each group:
MEGA WEASEL PIKA GRAY
NEWTON CELSIUS REAUMUR ATTO
KELVIN YOTTA SECOND MOLE
CANDELA PETA MINK FAHRENHEIT
Good luck! Answers as always will be revealed on Monday.
Answers as follows:
Round 1 – What’s in a Name?
1. Seaborgium was given its official name while Glenn Seaborg was still alive.
2. Otzi the iceman was discovered in the Alps, and fortunately for him was alive far too early to have heard the atrocious song by his namesake, DJ Otzi.
3. The slime-mold beetles took their names from George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
Round 2 – Moons
1. Deimos is the second moon of Mars.
2. Uranus takes its moons’ names from works by these literary giants.
3. And the moon named after the mythical cup-bearer of the Greek Gods is the biggest of them all – Jupiter’s Ganymede.
Round 3 – The Picture Round
1. DOUBLE [BASS] + HEEL + LICKS = Double Helix
2. CELL + FISH + JEAN [HARLOW] = Selfish Gene
3. SHREW + DINGERS + CAT = Schroedinger’s Cat
Round 4 – -ologies
1. Acridologists are particularly interested in grasshoppers and locusts.
2. This is a description of histology.
3. Nephologists like clouds.
Round 5 – Groupthink
There were a couple of red herrings here, but the groups resolve as follows:
1. KELVIN, CELSIUS, FAHRENHEIT, REAUMUR – Temperature scales
2. MEGA, PETA, ATTO, YOTTA – metric prefixes for expressing quantities of SI units
3. NEWTON, GRAY, SECOND, CANDELA – SI units
4. MOLE, MINK, PIKA, WEASEL – mammals – specifically, mammals that are commonly thought to be rodents but are in fact not.
Have a good week, and there will be more quizzing this Friday.