Science Quiz

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Science Quiz

• Prelims
• Rajagopal kiVi

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Rules

• 35 Questions
• ed questions resolve ties
• No Negatives
• Top 8 teams go to the finals

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1

• Whats the good word?

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The answer is...
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(No Transcript)
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2

• Benjamin Franklins Join, or Die woodcut and
  the historical American Gadsden flag both depict
  what creature that is found in abundance in the
  original 13 colonies, and is the heaviest
  venomous one of its type?
• (looking for one key word in what can be a two
  word answer)

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The answer is...
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• Diamondback Rattlesnake

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3

• Who is this song a tribute to?

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The answer is...
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• Jacques Yves Cousteau

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4

• In 1610, Galileo used a code to announce his
  discovery of what he believed to be two moons
  orbiting another planet.
• After considerable effort, X deciphered it as
  Salve umbisteneum geminatum Martia proles and
  thought it confirmed his own prediction that Mars
  has two moons.
• Galileo's cypher had in fact declared Altissimum
  planetam tergeminum observavi, which meant he had
  mistaken Y as moons.

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The answer is...
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• X Johannes Kepler
• Y Galileo had actually discovered Saturns rings

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5

• Aquamarine, emerald, morganite and heliodor are
  all formed from a hard lustrous mineral whose
  name is from Greek for blue-green color of sea
  water. Some scholars believe the word is related
  to the ancient city of Belur or perhaps derived
  from the Sanskrit word vaidurya. Which mineral?

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The answer is...
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• Beryl

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6

• Promoted widely in Africa by the charity Send a
  Cow, these raised beds are enriched with compost
  and have plants very close. When the vegetables
  are fully grown their leaves create a
  microclimate in which moisture is conserved and
  weed growth suppressed.
• The basket built into the center gives the bed a
  particular shape and in turn its name. What?

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20
The answer is...
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• Keyhole Gardens

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7

• In these tadpole-shaped solid glass objects the
  bulbous end can endure a blow with a hammer.
  However, if you so much scratch the thin tail,
  the glass shatters into fine powder. They were
  introduced to England in the 1640's by a grandson
  of James I, and nephew of Charles II. The King
  would have a subject hold the bulb end and then
  break off the tip, giving the startled person a
  small explosion right there in a closed hand. It
  was harmless fun, though, as the glass shatters
  into powder, not into jagged shards.
• What are they called?

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The answer is...
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• Prince Ruperts Drop

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8

• From an interview a few days ago when X was the
  Guest Director at the Cheltenham Science
  Festival
• My first encounter with synaesthesia was when I
  was approached by Dr Jamie Ward from UCL about 5
  or 6 years ago. He told me about synaesthesia. He
  said that one of the people that hed been
  working with is a synaesthete and when he uses
  the word, I think it was Julie, he tasted
  strawberries. I was completely naïvestill the
  thought of it now, I cant believe I said itI
  said give him a spoonful of cream and say
  Julie. Does he taste strawberries and cream?
  Then I didnt see Jamie for a while and he wrote
  a piece for The Fat Duck Cookbook. And actually,
  when I read the piece he said Well, ______ made
  this suggestion and it worked! And now, I would
  never have had the guts to say that because Id
  have thought This is a silly suggestion. But it
  actually worked!

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The answer is...
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• Heston Blumenthal

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9

• The B-2 Stealth Bomber is designed to fly
  undetected by radar. However, it has been known
  to show as visible on radar systems under two
  conditions. Name both.

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The answer is...
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• Under wet or highly humid conditions
• It is also susceptible when the bomb bay is open
  just before delivering a bomb

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10

• The last movement of Beethovens Symphony No. 5
  in C minor, Mozarts Requiem Mass, and Schuberts
  Unfinished Symphony among others, all feature
  what brass artifact, the only fully chromatic one
  that functions without valves?

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The answer is...
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• Trombone

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11

•  The 2001 Nobel prize for chemistry was given for
  work on the way in which certain chiral molecules
  can be used to speed up and control important
  chemical reactions. The word chiral originates
  from the Greek word for what part of the body?

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The answer is...
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• Our hands are chiral our right hand is a mirror
  image of our left hand as are most of life's
  molecules.

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• In the 1980s Craig Reynolds tried to answer this.
  He made a computer model based on 3D geometry.
  The model has three simple steering behaviors
  that describe what?

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The answer is...
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• How birds fly in formation

40
13

• The name "EURion constellation" was coined by
  Markus Kuhn, who uncovered the pattern in early
  2002. Some banks integrate the constellation
  tightly with the remaining design of the note. On
  the front of former Bank of England Elgar 20
  notes, they appear as green heads of musical
  notes. On some U.S. bills, they appear as the
  digit zero in small, yellow numbers matching the
  value of the note.
• What is the purpose of the EURion?

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The answer is...
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• The presence of the five circles is to prevent
  photocopiers to refuse processing, recognizing
  that it is a banknote.

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14

• "Compelling documentary portrait... a fascinating
  historical look at the technological side of the
  60's revolution ..." - Stephen Holden, New York
  Times

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The answer is...
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(No Transcript)
46
15

• What you will hear is called an Iridium scream,
  a change in the structure of the metal at the
  atomic level. When bent, the mechanical stress
  causes sections of the crystal lattice to change.
  What is this rearrangement of the structure
  called?

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The answer is...
48

• Twinning

49
16

• Process for what?

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The answer is...
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• Making Holograms

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• In 1831 a Miss Agnes Petrie was said to have
  fallen down crying 'oh, I am an angel!' An
  Edinburgh don Simpson's own letters tell of a
  very contained experiment with his colleagues, in
  which he reports they all ended up 'under the
  mahogany in a trice.'  What was going on at this
  house party at 52, Queen St?

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The answer is...
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• James Simpson asked his guests to inhale
  chloroform. Edinburgh Professor of Midwifery
  Simpson changed medical science by discovering
  chloroforms anesthetic qualities.

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18

• Macrophages and microglia play different roles in
  demyelination and axonal damage on the one hand
  or remyelination and neuroprotection on the
  other.
• What name is given to all this commotion, once
  believed to be caused by the suppression of sweat
  and therefore treated with herbs and bed rest,
  and a few decades later attributed to poor
  circulation?

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The answer is...
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• Multiple Sclerosis

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19

• Connect
• African Grey
• Hyacinth Macaw
• Cockatiel
• Moluccan cockatoo
• Indian Ringneck
• Budgerigar

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The answer is...
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• Birds that can Talk

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• In 1945 Leon Theremin invented an espionage tool
  which retransmitted incident radio waves with
  audio information. Even though this device was a
  covert listening device, it is considered to be a
  predecessor of what technology, because it was
  likewise passive, being energized and activated
  by waves from an outside source?

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The answer is...
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• RFID

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He was so identified with his pork-pie hat, that
in 1948, at the peak of his fame, the magazine
Physics Today put just a image of his pork-pie
hat on the cover of its 1st issue. Who?
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The answer is...
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Answer

• Robert Oppenheimer

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22
The __________ cat refers to the color/ pattern
of skin of a cat and not to a particular breed.
Also called tricolor cat. Since the color is
controlled by the X chromosome and Y chromosome
does not contain the gene for colors, all such
are almost always female. Name the animal.
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The answer is...
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Answer

• Calico Cat

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Its name is from the Quechua word for droppings
of sea birds and bats. It is a very good
fertilizer because of its high nitrogen and
phosphorous content. Found along the coast of
Peru, its fertilizing property was popularized in
Europe by Alexander Humboldt. Its taxation was
the cause of the 1879 War of the pacific between
Peru/Bolivia and Chile. Mined heavily by
Europeans in the late 19th century till the
development of artificial fertilizer. What?
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The answer is...
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Answer

• Guano

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He had a booming voice. To keep the noise down in
the laboratory he famously headed, the sign you
see was put up. Who, standing below the sign?
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The answer is...
75
Answer

• Ernest Rutherford

76
25
Francis Galton was convinced that hereditary
factors dominated the behaviour of mankind and
coined this phrase by borrowing from Tempest
description of Caliban as a devil, a born devil,
on whose X Y cannot stick. What phrase did
Galton coin, whose truth is still being debated?
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The answer is...
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Answer

• Nature vs Nurture

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Commonly used in desserts in South Asian cuisine.
It comes from the cell walls of a type of red
algae. Its main use is a culture medium in
microbiological work as a replacement for
gelatin. What?
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The answer is...
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Answer

• Agar gel

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27
He conceived the nuclear chain reaction as a
response to the dismissal of the use of splitting
the atom. He held the patent for the nuclear
chain reaction and for the nuclear reactor. He
wrote the letter to FDR, and got Einstein to
sign, ultimately leading to the Manhattan
Project. As a conscientious objector, he switched
to Molecular Biology after the war. He also
dabbled in sci-fi, writing tales of sentient
dolphins. Who?
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The answer is...
84
Answer

• Leo Szilard

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From a postcard written to a friend, New Years
resolutions of someone in 1940. Who? What is
the missing new year resolution? 1. Prove the
Riemann hypothesis. 2. -3. Find an argument for
the nonexistence of God which shall convince the
general public. 4. Be the first man at the top
of Mt. Everest. 5. Be proclaimed the first
president of the U.S.S.R., of Great Britian, and
Germany. 6. Murder Mussolini.
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The answer is...
87
Answer

• G H Hardy Make 211 no out in the fourth innings
  of the last test match at the Oval. 

88
29
What is geographically unique about the Galapagos
penguin?
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The answer is...
90
Answer

• Only species of penguin found north of the
  equator in the wild

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This Russian émigré to America synthesized
Darwinian evolutionary biology with the then
nascent field of genetics and was instrumental in
creating the modern evolutionary synthesis or
neo-Darwinian synthesis. He was also
instrumental in spreading the idea that natural
selection occurred through mutations in genes
Also wrote a famous essay Nothing in Biology
Makes Sense Except in the Light of
Evolution. Who?
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The answer is...
93
Answer

• Theodosius Dobzhansky

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A medical sign is an indication of some medical
fact or condition discovered by the physician
during examination of the patient. This term was
originally used to refer to the branch of
medicine that was to do with interpretation of
medical signs. Now it is used in a more general
sense of interpreting signs. What term?
95
The answer is...
96
Answer

• Semiotics

97
32
Visual Id the 2 people standing in front of
something that won them their Nobel Prize.
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99
The answer is...
100
Answer

• Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias

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The term X first appeared in print in 1873, in
examination questions set by James
Thomson (brother of Lord Kelvin). However this
angular measure was used in all but name by Roger
Cotes in 1714. Till 1995 it was part of SI
Supplementary Units. This category was later
abolished, and ever since X is considered to be a
SI Derived Unit. What?
102
The answer is...
103
Answer

• Radian

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Painting from 1788. Painter and Subject?
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The answer is...
106
Answer

• Antoine Lavoisier and his Wife Jacques Louis
  David

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35

• Book featuring stories about
• experiments done as a school student
• Stealing cerium in --------- to sell for use in
  cigarettes
• Working in a nickel mine
• Adventures as a freelance chemical consultant
• Industrial detective stories in which chemical
  problems are solved
• Following a carbon atom around the world
• Author and book?

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The answer is...
109
Answer

• Primo Levi and Periodic Table

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(No Transcript)