Welcome to the return of the Friday quiz! It has been, to say the least, an extended break since the last one so hopefully that means your quizzing brain is well rested and you’re raring to go.
Round 1 – News
- How did the ‘Olinguito’ make the news recently?
- Journals published in which country have been implicated in a citation scandal this week, whereby a group of journals referenced each other hundreds of times over purely to boost their impact factors?
- It has been reported recently that progress has been made toward the publishing of the genetic data of the HeLa cell line, which has been instrumental in a huge number of significant advances in medicine over the past 60 years – what is the name of the woman after whom HeLa cells are named?
Round 2 – Big Bang Theory
- Who was the Belgian astronomer, physicist and priest who first proposed what we now call Big Bang Theory?
- Which British astronomer coined the term Big Bang, allegedly pejoratively, in order to contrast it with his favoured steady state theory?
- Mayim Bialik, one of the stars of TV’s The Big Bang Theory, has a doctorate in which academic subject?
Round 3 – The Picture Round
This week’s picture clues are charades depicting the names of famous scientists – can you work out who they are?
1.
{credit}Shay / mandj98 / Evan Rinaldi{/credit}
2.
{credit}Roy Kerwood/ gailf548{/credit}
3.
{credit}PD/ Akademan/ CC{/credit}
Round 4 – Extinction
- The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event (formerly the K-T boundary event) is particularly noted for marking the demise of which group of animals?
- Which creature, discovered in the seas around the Aleutian Islands in 1741 by George Steller, was hunted to extinction within a mere 30 years of its discovery by sailors who valued its supply of meat and leather?
- Although unconfirmed reports of sightings crop up every few years, which woodpecker species, once native to the forests of the southeastern United States, is now generally thought to be extinct?
Round 5 – Anagrams
For this week’s anagram round, the answers are all areas of study that are subjects of Nature research journals – so for example “Ice denim” would be “Medicine”, as in the Nature Medicine journal.
- Cool sport
- Alarm site
- Insecure cone
- Hootenanny clog
- Chemical agent
Good luck! And look out for the answers next week.
Answers are as follows:
Round 1 – News
1. The Olinguito is the first new carnivore to be discovered in the Western Hemisphere for 35 years. More here: https://www.nature.com/news/cute-mammal-is-first-carnivore-discovered-in-western-hemisphere-for-35-years-1.13565
2. Brazil was caught up in that scandal: https://www.nature.com/news/brazilian-citation-scheme-outed-1.13604
3. HeLa cells are named after Henrietta Lacks. If you haven’t read it already then Rebecca Skloot’s book about her (and the research her cells spawned) is well worth a look.
Round 2 – Big Bang Theory
1. Georges Lemaître first proposed Big Bang theory (although he didn’t call it that).
2. It was Fred Hoyle, in fact, who coined the term.
3. Bialik has a PhD in neuroscience.
Round 3 – The Picture Round
1. [Thierry] HENRY + [Boris] BECKER + ELLE [MacPherson] = Henri Becquerel
2. JOHN [Lennon] + DOLL + TON = John Dalton
3. LOUIS [Armstrong] + [Andre] AGASSI + Z = Louis Agassiz
Round 4- Extinction
1. It was that this point that the dinosaurs disappeared from the fossil record.
2. There was a clue in the name – it was the Steller’s Sea Cow.
3. This is the ivory-billed woodpecker.
Round 5 – Anagrams
1. PROTOCOLS
2. MATERIALS
3. NEUROSCIENCE
4. NANOTECHNOLOGY
5. CLIMATE CHANGE
Look out for the next quiz next Friday!