Science - WQC Style

Question 1

1. The 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov for their work on which nova substance?

Answer 1

1. Graphene

Question 2

2. Born 1906, which mathematician and philosopher published his two ‘Incompleteness Theorems’ at the age of 25?

Answer 2

2. Kurt Godel

Question 3

3. In 1846, the German chemist Heinrich Rose determined that tantalum ores contain a second element. What name did he give to this new element, after the daughter of Tantalus in Greek myth?

Answer 3

3. Niobium (after Niobe)

Question 4

4. What is the name of the specialized lymphoid organ, located mostly in the anterior thorax is the site where Immune T-lymphocytes mature within. It is most active in early childhood and begins to decline in size and activity by the early teens.

Answer 4

4. Thymus

Question 5

5. Who is she? Known as the `Dark Lady of DNA’, her work on X-ray crystallography contributed immensely towards the understanding of the structure of DNA. She died of ovarian cancer at the age of 37, in 1958.

Answer 5

5. Rosalind Franklin

Question 6

6. Deriving from ancient Greek for `burning up’, what name is given to the imaginary element thought to be present in combustible substances that is released during burning? It remained the dominant theory until Lavoisier demonstrated the role of oxygen in combustion in the 1780s.

Answer 6

6. Phlogiston

Question 7

7. One of the fundamental equations in physics, the energy of a photon (E) is the product of its velocity and h. What is h?

Answer 7

7. Planck’s constant

Question 8

8. Discovered by German chemist Friedrich Stromayer iin 1817, which metallic element is named after the founder of Thebes and slayer of the Ismenian water-dragon in Greek mythology? Its only mineral of importance is Greenockite, and one of its newer uses is as a telluride compound in solar panels.

Answer 8

8. Cadmium

Question 9

9. In 2003, the Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman proved which 100 year-old mathematical problem, which stated, ‘Every simply connected, closed 3-manifold is homeomorphic to the 3-sphere’? He subsequently declined the Field’s Medal and the Clay Millennium Prize, and has apparently withdrawn from the pursuit of mathematics.

Answer 9

9. Poincare’s Conjecture

Question 10

10. Named after a Dutch Nobel laureate in physics, what name is given to the phenomenon where a spectral line splits into several components in a static magnetic field? It has important applications such as enabling astronomers to measure the magnetic fields of stars, as well as in MRI imaging in medicine.

Answer 10

10. Zeeman effect

Question 11

11. In particle physics, hadrons are composite particles made of quarks held together by the strong nuclear force. Hadrons are divided into two families : baryons (made up of 3 quarks) and which subatomic particle (made up of a quark and an antiquark)’? Examples include the pion and the kaon.

Answer 11

11. Mesons

Question 12

12. Found only in mollusks and arthropods, what name is given to the metalloprotein responsible for oxygen transport throughout their bodies? Instead of an iron atom in hemoglobin, it contains two copper atoms which bind reversibly to an oxygen molecule, hence accounting for its blue coloration in the oxygenated state.

Answer 12

12. Hemocyanin

Question 13

13. Which law, named after a physicist and mathematician born in 1749, has significant applications in cardiovascular and respiratory physiology? Essentially it states that `the larger the vessel radius (R), the larger the wall tension (I) required to withstand a given internal fluid pressure (P)

Answer 13

13. Laplace’s Law

Question 14

14. Proposed by the paleontologists Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould in 1972, what two-word term in evolutionary biology is a theory (shown in B) which holds that species tend to remain stable over long periods of time, with intermittent rapid bursts of change resulting in new species formation? This is in contrast to phylectic gradualism (A), where evolution is seen as generally smooth and continuous.

Answer 14

14. Punctuated equilibrium

Question 15

15. Its name believed to have been invented by Paracelsus from Switzerland, what is the name given to this hypothetical substance defined by alchemists to be the universal solvent; it was derided by the 17th-century German chemist Johann von Lowenstern-Kunckel, who pointed out that in order to be true, it would have to dissolve any container designed to hold it?

Answer 15

15. Alkahest

Question 16

16. Used as a meat tenderizer and possibly effective in reducing pain from osteoarthritis, bromelain refers to two protease enzymes commonly derived from the stems of which tropical fruit? Its action probably accounts for the stinging sensation on one’s tongue after eating a surfeit of this fruit.

Answer 16

16. Pineapple

Question 17

17. Born 1919, the English scientist James Lovelock, who developed the electron capture detector and discovered the widespread presence of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmosphere, is best known for proposing which theory, popularized in a 1979 book?

Answer 17

17. Gaia Hypothesis

Question 18

18. In inorganic chemistry, which rule (formulated by and named after a 19th-century Russian chemist) states that with addition of an acid HX to an asymmetrical alkene, the H becomes attached to the carbon with fewer alkyl substituents, while the X becomes attached to the carbon with more alkyl substituents?

Answer 18

18. Markonikov’s Rule

Question 19

19. Named after a German technical physicist born 1882, what name is given to the effect where a magnetic field is expelled from a superconductor during its transition to its superconducting state? This effect explains the phenomenon of a magnetic levitating above a superconductor which is cooled below its transition temperature (Tc).

Answer 19

19. Meissner Effect

Question 20

20. Derived from the name of an 18th-century German physicist, what name is given the patterns formed by branching electrical discharges that appears on the surface or the interior of insulating materials? They are also used medically to describe the pattern of cutaneous injury seen on the skin of lightning-strike victims.

Answer 20

20. Lichtenberg figures

Question 21

21. In fluid mechanics, which dimensionless quantity, defined as the ratio of inertial forces to viscous forces, is used to predict flow patterns of fluids? Named after an engineer born 1842 in Belfast, it has a low value when flow is smooth and constant (laminar), and a high value when it is chaotic (turbulent).

Answer 21

21. Reynolds number

Question 22

22. From the Latin for ‘carrying-away vessel’, which two-word term denotes the two ducts which form part of the reproductive system of many vertebrates, which convey sperm from the epididymis near the testicles to the ejaculatory ducts in anticipation of ejaculation?

Answer 22

22. Vas deferens

Question 23

23. Proposed in 1889, after which scientist (born 1859 in Uppland. Sweden) is this equation named? Based on the work of the Dutch chemist Jacobus Henricus van’t Hoff, it is a formula that relates the rate of chemical reactions to temperature. He received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1903, and became director of the Nobel Institute in 1905

Answer 23

23. Svante Arrhenius

Question 24

24. Born 1955 in Stockholm, which Swedish biologist is one of the founders of the relatively new discipline of paleogenetics? He is noted for his extensive work into the genome of the extinct Neanderthals, and also for his work on the FOXP2, also known as the ‘language gene.

Answer 24

24. Svante Paabo

Question 25

25. Mathematically, the subatomic particles known as fermions come in three types : Weyl fermions (massless), Dirac fermions (possess mass and is not its own antiparticle), and fermions (that is its own antiparticle) named after which Italian theoretical physicist? A maths prodigy, he worked with Fermi and Heisenberg at a young age. In 1938, he disappeared while on a boat trip from Palermo to Naples - a mystery unsolved till today.

Answer 25

25. Ettore Majorana

Question 26

26. Named after two American economists (one of them a Nobel laureate), which famous equation in economics & finance is underpinned by the idea that one can perfectly hedge the option by selling the underlying asset in just the right way, hence eliminating risk? Commonly cited as one of the most important equations ever created, it led to a boom in options trading and legitimised the activities of options markets around the world.

Answer 26

26. Black-Scholes Equation

Question 27

27. Which father-and-son team gave their surname to the hypothesis that the mass extinction of dinosaurs during the Cretaceous-Paleogene event was due to the impact of a large asteroid with Earth? The father, who died in 1988, worked on the Manhattan Project and was awarded the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physics for developing the technique of bubble chamber data analysis.

Answer 27

27. Alvarez (Luis and Walter)

Question 28

28. Named after a 19th-century Swiss-Russian chemist, which law (also known as the law of constant heat summation) states that the total enthalpy change during a chemical reaction is the same whether it consists of a single or several steps? His other works include the analysis of minerals, one of which (silver telluride or Ag2Te) was named in his honour.

Answer 28

28. Germain Hess

Question 29

29. Born 1913 in Budapest, he was one of the most prolific mathematicians of the 20th century, with over 500 research collaborators throughout his career., so much that his friends created an eponymous number to quantify their degree of separation from him, based on their collaboration. Also known for his eccentric lifestyle, he spent most of his life as a vagabond, travelling from conferences & seminars to temporary stays at the houses of his fellow scientist friends. Name him.

Answer 29

29. Paul Erdos

Question 30

30. In physics and material science, the temperature at which certain materials lose their permanent magnetism is named after which physicist who died in 1906? Above this temperature, the materials become paramagnetic, with disordered arrangement of its magnetic moments in the absence of a magnetic field.

Answer 30

30. Pierre Curie (the Curie point)

Question 31

31. Also called the `Syntaxis Mathematica’, which one-word title of Arabic derivation is given to the 2nd-century mathematical and astronomical treatise by Claudius Ptolemy? Its geocentric model became accepted dogma for another 1200 years, until the arrival of Copernicus.

Answer 31

31. Almagest

Question 32

32. Discovered in 1879 by the French chemist Paul-Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran, the major application of which element of the lathanide series is in combination with cobalt to make a type of strong permanent magnet? It is also the first element (by order of atomic number) to be named after a person - the chief of the Russian Mining Engineering Corps between 1845-61.

Answer 32

32. Samarium (Vassili Samarsky-Bykhovets)

Question 33

33. Born in 1912, which English economist and mathematician gives his name to the constant defined by concatenating successive integers, i.e. 0.12345678910111213141516…? He also worked with his friend Alan Turing to produce one of the first chess-playing computer programs in 1948.

Answer 33

33. D.G. Champernowne

Question 34

34. Derived from the amino acid tryptophan, which monoamine neurotransmitter, also known as 5- hydroxytryptamine (5-HT), has functions which include modulation of mood, appetite and sleep? Antidepressants such as fluoxetine (Prozac) are known as SSRIs, due to their action in increasing the extracellular levels of this neurotransmitter by inhibiting its reabsorption into the presynaptic cells.

Answer 34

34. Serotonin

Question 35

35. Which German physicist born in 1864 gives his name to the displacement law that states that the black body radiation curves for different temperatures peaks at a wavelength inversely proportional to the temperature? A piece of metal being heated and changes its appearance from ‘red hot’ to ‘white hot’ is an example of this law.

Answer 35

35. Wilhelm Wein

Question 36

36. Born 1787, which Czech anatomist and physiologist gives his name to the following? (i) A class of large, GABAergic neurons with intricate dendrites found in the cerebellum, (2) Subendocardial fibres in the ventricles of the heart that conduct cardiac action potentials, (3) The effect where the human eye displays much reduced sensitivity to dim red light compared to dim blue light.

Answer 36

36. Jan (Johann) Evangelist PURKINJE/ PURKYNE

Question 37

37. Which bright-red carotenoid pigment is found in tomatoes and other red fruits & vegetables such as carrots, watermelons and papayas? It derives its name from the Latin species name for the tomato.

Answer 37

37. Lycopene

Question 38

38. In science, which letter of the Greek alphabet is the symbol for : (I) the cosmological constant in cosmology (2) the radioactive decay constant in nuclear physics (3) the ionic conductance of a given ion in electrochemistry?

Answer 38

38. Lambda

Question 39

39. These three individuals were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize. Name the person on the right (highlighted in pink).

Answer 39

39. Maurice Wilkins (Medicine 1962, with Watson and Crick)

Question 40

40. Which scientist, nominated multiple times for a Nobel Prize, is shown on this banknote?

Answer 40

40. Kristian Birkeland

Question 41

41. The American physical chemist Harold Urey won the 1931 Nobel Chemistry prize for his discovery of what substance? His collaborator Ferdinand Brickwedde had distilled 5 liters of cryogenically-produced liquid hydrogen down to one ml of liquid.

Answer 41

41. Deuterium (heavy water)

Question 42

42. Which silvery and malleable rare-earth metal is named after the Finnish chemist and mineralogist shown here? Because of its paramagnetic properties, solutions of its complex are commonly used as intravenous contrast agents in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Answer 42

42. Gadolinium (Johan Gadolin)

Question 43

43. Originally discovered in 1900 by Alberto Ascoli, which pyrimidine derivative is one of the four nucleobases found in RNA? In DNA, this nucleobase is replaced by thymine.

Answer 43

43. Uracil

Question 44

44. First proposed by E.C.G. Sudarshan in 1962 and coined by Gerald Feinberg in a 1967 paper, what name is given to a hypothetical particle that always moves faster than the speed of light? No compelling evidence of its existence has been found so far.

Answer 44

44. Tachyon

Question 45

45. What two-word term refers to a fast-moving current of hot gas and rock, following certain volcanic eruptions, which commonly travels downhill hugging the ground, and can attain speeds of up to 700 km/ hr?

Answer 45

45. Pyroclastic flow

Question 46

46. After which English physicist is the F2-layer of the ionosphere named? About 200-800km above the Earth’s surface, it is the main reflecting layer for high-frequency communications.

Answer 46

46. Edward Appleton

Question 47

47. Named by Rutherford in 1903, which type of radiation on the electromagnetic spectrum possesses the shortest wavelength and highest frequency? It consists of high-energy photons which are strongly penetrating.

Answer 47

47. Gamma rays

Question 48

48. Winning for the first time for his work on the structure of insulin, and a second time for determining base sequences of nucleic acids, which British biochemist who died in 2013 is the only person to have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry twice?

Answer 48

48. Frederick Sanger

Question 49

49. Used as a chemical weapon during World War I and responsible for about 85% of the deaths from chemical weapons, phosgene is a colourless gas consisting of carbon, oxygen and which other element?

Answer 49

49. Chlorine

Question 50

50. Born 1797 in New York, which scientist served as the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution? While building electromagnets, he discovered the phenomenon of self-inductance; the SI unit of inductance is named after him.

Answer 50

50. Joseph Henry

Question 51

51. Which type of neosilicate, a common mineral with the formula (Mg +2, Fe +2)SiO4, derives its name from its typical greenish coloration? The gemstone peridot is an example of this mineral.

Answer 51

51. Olivine

Question 52

52. The first part of its name deriving from the Greek for ‘weak’, what term describes the highly viscous, mechanically weak and ductilely deforming region of the upper mantle of the Earth? It lies below the lithosphere, at depths between approximately 80 and 200 km (50 and 120 miles) below the surface.

Answer 52

52. Asthenosphere

Question 53

53. The biogeographical region of Wallacea is known for its rich and diverse flora & fauna. It is bounded to the west by the Wallace Line, and to the east by a line that separates it from Australia-New Guinea, and is named after which English naturalist born 1849?

Answer 53

53. Richard Lydekker/ Lydekker’s line

Question 54

54. Its discovery first published jointly in 2004 by scientists from Dubna and Lawrence Livermore, the chemical element with atomic number 113 was named in November 2016 after which country?

Answer 54

54. Japan (Nihonium)

Question 55

55. Which biologist and geneticist, born in Oxford in 1892, wrote the futuristic utopian work ‘Daedalus’, which introduced his vision of ‘ectogenesis’ that raised the prospect of test-tube babies?

Answer 55

55. J.B.S. Haldane

Question 56

56. Which famous scientist and Nobel laureate is shown here?

Answer 56

56. Max Planck

Question 57

57. Discovered in 1975 in Israel by Gideon Goldstein, which small regulatory protein is so-named as it is found in almost all eukaryotic tissues? The 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to a group of scientists who discovered the method that cells use it to degrade and recycle proteins.

Answer 57

57. Ubiquitin

Question 58

58. Named after the American paleontologist who first described it, what two-word name is given to the apparent discontinuity in the tetrapod fossil record between the late Devonian and early Carboniferous period?

Answer 58

58. Romer’s Gap

Question 59

59. Identify this famous scientist.

Answer 59

59. Nikola Tesla

Question 60

60. What name is given to the dry and dusty northeasterly trade wind which blows from the Sahara Desert, over the West African subcontinent into the Gulf of Guinea, usually between the end of November and the middle of March?

Answer 60

60. Harmattan

Question 61

61. Born in 1730, which French astronomer gives his name to the list of astronomical objects that distinguishes between permanent objects in the sky and transient ones such as comets?

Answer 61

61. Charles Messier

Question 62

62. Also known as the ‘Age of Fish’ due to the diversity of fish in its oceans, which geologic time period between 419.2 and 358.9 million years ago also saw the first significant adaptive radiation of life onto dry land? It is succeeded by the Carboniferous period.

Answer 62

62. Devonian

Question 63

63. Deriving from the Latin for a light-producing object, what is the SI base unit of luminous intensity, i.e. luminous power per unit solid angle emitted by a light source in a particular direction?

Answer 63

63. Candela

Question 64

64. The set of seventeen chemical elements known as rare earth metals include the fifteen lanthanides as well as two other elements, because they tend to occur in the same ores as lanthanides and exhibit similar properties. Name any one of these two.

Answer 64

64. Scandium/ Yttrium

Question 65

65. Named after the German chemist and industrialist Ludwig Mond, the Mond process is a technique used to extract and purify which metallic element? This element occurs in nature in ores such as pentlandite and millerite.

Answer 65

65. Nickel

Question 66

66. Born 1792, the Estonian scientist Karl Ernst von Baer is widely regarded as one of the key founders of which biological discipline? In his 1828 work ‘Ober Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere’, he laid down its four eponymous laws.

Answer 66

66. Embryology

Question 67

67. To which scientist does this Google Doodle pay tribute?

Answer 67

67. Karl Landsteiner

Question 68

68. In optics, which three-word term refers to the phenomenon that occurs when a light ray strikes a medium boundary at an angle larger than the critical angle? If the refractive index is lower on the other side, the light ray will not be able to pass through the boundary.

Answer 68

68. Total internal reflection

Question 69

69. Born 1851 in Amsterdam, which microbiologist and botanist is considered to be one of the key founders of virology and environmental microbiology? His discoveries include the bacterial processes of nitrogen fixation and sulfate reduction.

Answer 69

69. Martinus Beijerinck

Question 70

70. Shown in one of its simplified forms, the equation shown here is named after which physicist?

Answer 70

70. Paul Dirac

Question 71

71. Its name deriving from the fungal strain that causes the `foolish seedling disease’ in which rice seedlings developed abnormally long stems, which group of plant hormones regulate growth and influence various developmental processes, e.g. stem elongation, germination, flowering and leaf and fruit senescence?

Answer 71

71. Gibberellin (Gibberella fujikuroi)

Question 72

72. Born around 190 BC in Nicaea, which ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician is widely considered the ‘Father of Trigonometry’? He is also credited with the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes and the compilation of the first star catalog in the western world.

Answer 72

72. Hipparchus

Question 73

73. Name this Nobel laureate.

Answer 73

73. Wolfgang Pauli

Question 74

74. Which Austrian-born physicist first postulated the existence of the neutrino in December 1930?

Answer 74

74. Wolfgang Pauli

Question 75

75. What does the letter ‘B’ in BASIC (the computer programming language) stand for?

Answer 75

75. Beginner’s (Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code)

Question 76

76. Named after a 19th-century German inventor and industrialist, what unit is the SI derived unit for electrical conductance?

Answer 76

76. Siemens

Question 77

77. In geometry, a tangent is a line which touches a curve at just one point. What term, from the Latin meaning ‘to cut’, is given to a line which intersects the curve at two points?

Answer 77

77. Secant

Question 78

78. Which element has three naturally-occurring isotopes, namely protium, deuterium and tritium?

Answer 78

78. Hydrogen

Question 79

79. In a molecule of chlorophyll (the pigment that enables green plants to photosynthesize), an ion of which metallic element is found at the centre of the chlorin ring?

Answer 79

79. Magnesium

Question 80

80. According to Newton’s second law of motion, force is equal to mass multiplied by what?

Answer 80

80. Acceleration

Question 81

81. In chemistry, a neutral solution has a pH of what number?

Answer 81

81. Seven

Question 82

82. In the popular acronym ‘laser’, what does the letter ‘E’ represent?

Answer 82

82. Emission (Light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation)

Question 83

83. What name is given to the massive global ocean which surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras?

Answer 83

83. Panthalassa

Question 84

84. According to the Standard Model of particle physics, all fundamental particles can be divided into two categories depending on their spin. The first group are the fermions (named after Enrico Fermi); which Indian physicist gives his name to the second group?

Answer 84

84. Satyendra Nath Bose (the bosons)

Question 85

85. The diagram shown here illustrates the theory of which 18-19th century naturalist, which was subsequently superseded by modern evolutionary theory and Mendelian genetics?

Answer 85

85. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

Question 86

86. Only two elements in the Periodic table are liquids at room temperature under standard atmospheric pressure. One is mercury, which halogen is the other?

Answer 86

86. Bromine

Question 87

87. The two individuals shown here are pioneers in the development of which medical technique, resulting in one of them winning the Nobel Prize for Medicine & Physiology?

Answer 87

87. In-vitro fertilization (Drs Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards)

Question 88

88. Marie Curie was awarded the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her discovery of two new radioactive elements, which she had isolated from pitchblende. One of them is polonium (named after her native Poland), which is the other?

Answer 88

88. Radium

Question 89

89. In mathematics, which eight-letter term is the perpendicular distance of a point from the y–axis, hence can also refer to the horizontal axis (typically x-axis) of a two-dimensional graph?

Answer 89

89. Abscissa (the y-axis equivalent is the ordinate)

Question 90

90. This shows a thought experiment devised in 1935 by which Austrian theoretical physicist?

Answer 90

90. Erwin Schrodinger

Question 91

91. What name, derived from a plateau surrounding the city of Trieste in the northern Adriatic between Italy and Slovenia, refers to a type of landscape formed from the dissolution of rocks such as limestone and gypsum, and is characterized by underground drainage systems like sinkholes and caves?

Answer 91

91. Karst

Question 92

92. Born 1864, which German mathematician and former teacher of Einstein gives his name to the mathematical space setting in which Einstein’s theory of special relativity is most conveniently calculated? Unlike the traditional Euclidean space with has only space-like dimensions, the space named after him also has one time-like dimension.

Answer 92

92. Hermann Minkowski

Question 93

93. With applications such as in nuclear magnetic imaging and nuclear reactors, what is the more common two-word name for deuterium oxide (D2O)?

Answer 93

93. Heavy water

Question 94

94. Its existence predicted by Mendeleev in 1869 but only identified in 1923, the element hafnium (atomic number 72) is named after the Latin for which capital city? Today, the Faculty of Science of this city’s university still uses in its seal a stylized image of the hafnium atom.

Answer 94

94. Copenhagen

Question 95

95. This shows a classic experiment in behavioral modification. Who is the Russian scientist with whom it is closely associated?

Answer 95

95. Ivan Pavlov (in classical conditioning)

Question 96

96. In science, an ion that carries a net negative charge is known as an anion; what is one that carries a net positive charge called?

Answer 96

96. Cation

Question 97

97. Which simple hydrocarbon, believed to have been discovered by the 17th-century German alchemist Johann Joachim Bercher, serves as a major hormone in plants which regulates the ripening of fruit, the opening of flowers, and the abscission (or shedding) of leaves?

Answer 97

97. Ethene (Ethylene)

Question 98

98. Which letter, the 17th of the Greek alphabet, is used in statistics to represent the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient; in molecular biology to represent a prokaryotic protein involved in the termination of transcription; and in physics to represent resistivity and mass density?

Answer 98

98. Rho (ρ)

Question 99

99. What effect is shown here? Named after the American psychologist who first published it in 1935, it is a demonstration of interference in the reaction time of a task, and can be used to measure a person’s selective attention capacity and skills, as well as their processing speed ability.

Answer 99

99. Stroop effect (after John Ridley Stroop)

Question 100

100. This is a graphical representation of which scientific law, named after the chemist & physicist who published it in 1662?

Answer 100

100. Boyle’s Law (after Robert Boyle)

Question 101

101. Which 18th-19th century Prussian scientist gives his name to the natural physical phenomenon indicated by the question mark? Also named after one of the countries in the region, it can extend more than 1000km offshore and is vital to the marine ecosystem.

Answer 101

101. Alexander von Humboldt (the Humboldt/ Peru Current)

Question 102

102. If a moving object has mass m and velocity v, what two-word term does ½ mv2 represent?

Answer 102

102. Kinetic energy

Question 103

103. With which famous scientist would you associate the equation shown here?

Answer 103

103. Albert Einstein

Question 104

104. This is a diagrammatic representation of a thought experiment illustrating how the Second Law of Thermodynamics could hypothetically be violated? After which 19th-century physicist is it named?

Answer 104

104. James Clerk Maxwell (‘Maxwell’s Demon’)

Question 105

105. In a rainbow, what colour comes between orange and green?

Answer 105

105. Yelllow

Question 106

106. Born 1902 in Budapest, which theoretical physicist and mathematician won the Nobel Prize in Physics for ‘his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus…..through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles’? He gives his name to a thought experiment in which a friend of his performs the Schrödinger’s cat experiment after he leaves the laboratory, and only on his return does he learn the result of the experiment from his friend, that is, whether the cat is alive or dead.

Answer 106

106. Eugene Wigner (‘Wigner’s Friend’)

Question 107

107. Named after a 18th-century mathematician born in Konigsberg, this is a schematic representation of which as-yet unsolved problem in number theory?

Answer 107

107. Goldbach’s Conjecture (Every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes)

Question 108

108. Named after a Dutch Nobel laureate in Physics, what name is given to the effect whereby a spectral line is split into several components in the presence of a magnetic field?

Answer 108

108. Zeeman effect

Question 109

109. With which famous English scientist would you associate his three laws of motion?

Answer 109

109. Isaac Newton

Question 110

110. In mathematics, the symbol for infinity resembles which numeral lying on its side?

Answer 110

110. 8

Question 111

111. The Gloucestershire farm-boy James Phipps entered into the history of science on 14th May, 1796 – how?

Answer 111

111. First person given the vaccine against smallpox (by inoculation with cowpox) by Edward Jenner

Question 112

112. Discovered by William Hyde Wollaston in 1803, which metallic element was named after an asteroid discovered just a year earlier, which itself was named after the goddess Athena?

Answer 112

112. Palladium (Pallas Athena)

Question 113

113. Igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic are types of what?

Answer 113

113. Rocks

Question 114

114. Obtained from intensive leaching processes, ‘yellowcake’ is the name given to a concentrated powder of which element – an important intermediate step in the processing of its ore?

Answer 114

114. Uranium

Question 115

115. Douglas Adam’s book ‘Mostly Harmless’ discussed the existence of Rupert, the 10th planet of the Solar System. If such a planet exists, it should be about 154 astronomical units from the Sun, according to which mathematical relationship which is named after two German scientists, that produced fairly accurate approximation of the relative distances of the first seven planets of the Solar System?

Answer 115

115. Titius-Bode Law

Question 116

116. The contraption shown in Figure B is named after which ancient mathematician?

Answer 116

116. Archimedes (Archimedes Screw)

Question 117

117. In geometry, what R is the name given to the type of angle shown?

Answer 117

117. Reflex

Question 118

118. Occurring around 66 million years ago, the K-T event is marked by the mass extinction of three-quarters of Earth’s animal & plant species (including all non-avian dinosaurs). The ‘T’ in the name stands for Tertiary, what does the ‘K’ stand for?

Answer 118

118. Cretaceous

Question 119

119. In 1963, the physicist Murray Gell-Mann gave the name ‘quark’ to a new class of subatomic particles whose existence he had postulated, after having come across the word in which novel published in 1939?

Answer 119

119. ‘Finnegan’s Wake’ by James Joyce

Question 120

120. The American cytogeneticist Barbara McClintock was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discovery of transposons – DNA elements that can change their positions within the genome and sometimes creating or reversing mutations. Which two-word alliterative term did she use to describe these entities?

Answer 120

120. Jumping genes

Question 121

121. This is a map showing different lines proposed by two naturalists as the boundary that separates the ecozones of Asia and Australasia. Name either one of these two individuals.

Answer 121

121. Alfred Russell Wallace (Wallace Line) and Max Carl Wilhelm Weber (Weber Line)

Question 122

122. This shows the chemical structure of which ubiquitous substance? The choice of colour might give you a clue.

Answer 122

122. Chlorophyll

Question 123

123. The ozone layer protects Earth against which type of potentially harmful radiation from the Sun?

Answer 123

123. Ultraviolet (UV) radiation

Question 124

124. This shows the scientific experimental setup commonly known by the name of which 20th-century behavioural psychologist?

Answer 124

124. B.F. Skinner (The Skinner Box)

Question 125

125. The malleable metal alloy pewter traditionally consists of 85-99% which metal, mixed with variable small quantities of copper, antimony, bismuth or silver?

Answer 125

125. Tin

Question 126

126. Which French physicist, who shared the 1903 Nobel Prize for Physics with Pierre & Marie Curie, has the SI unit of radioactivity named after him?

Answer 126

126. Henri Becquerel

Question 127

127. Named after a metallurgist from Luxembourg, the Kroll process has largely replaced the Hunter process as the means for the industrial production of which lustrous, silvery transition metal? It makes use of refined rutile or ilmenite, treating it with chlorine gas before the resultant chloride is reduced by liquid magnesium or sodium.

Answer 127

127. Titanium

Question 128

128. Born 1646, which German polymath and philosopher is generally credited with the invention of calculus, independent of Isaac Newton?

Answer 128

128. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Question 129

129. In what specific type of triangle would you find a hypotenuse?

Answer 129

129. Right-angled triangle

Question 130

130. After the Serbian geophysicist and astronomer who laid its foundation in the early 20th-century, what name is given to the collective effects of changes of the Earth’s movements (e.g. eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession) on its climate, as illustrated here?

Answer 130

130. Milankovitch Cycles

Question 131

131. In the abbreviation LCD (referring to the technology used in the screens of televisions and computers, etc), for what does the letter ‘L’ stand?

Answer 131

131. Liquid (Liquid Crystal Display)

Question 132

132. Coined in 1900 by the German geologist Wilhelm Bornhardt, which 9-letter term refers to an isolated rocky hill, ridge or mountain that arises abruptly from an otherwise gently sloping or flat surrounding plain? It is used interchangeably with the Native American term ‘monadnock’, and spectacular examples include Uluru/Ayers Rock and the Olga Rocks (Kata Tjuta) in central Australia.

Answer 132

132. Inselberg

Question 133

133. This illustrates a fundamental relation named after which ancient mathematician?

Answer 133

133. Pythagoras

Question 134

134. Named after a British astronomer born in 1851, this is a diagrammatic depiction of the cyclical variation of which natural phenomenon? The shape of the plots gave rise to an entomological reference by which it is popularly known.

Answer 134

134. Sunspots (the Maunder Butterfly Diagram)

Question 135

135. First used in 1911 by the Dutch theoretical physicist Paul Ehrenfest, what dramatic-sounding two-word term refers to the prediction that an ideal black body at thermal equilibrium will emit radiation of infinite power? It is a result of the Rayleigh–Jeans Law agreeing with experimental results at large wavelengths (low frequencies) but strongly disagreeing at short wavelengths (high frequencies).

Answer 135

135. Ultraviolet catastrophe

Question 136

136. What is the SI derived unit of electrical resistance, named after a German physicist born in 1789?

Answer 136

136. Ohm (after Georg Simon Ohm)

Question 137

137. What is the vascular tissue in plants which conducts water and dissolved nutrients up from the roots?

Answer 137

137. Xylem

Question 138

138. Which word of Javanese origin describes an extremely destructive mudflow, usually down the sides of a volcano and composed of pyroclastic material, rock and water?

Answer 138

138. Lahar

Question 139

139. In biochemistry, which disaccharide is formed by the combination of a molecule of glucose with a molecule of fructose?

Answer 139

139. Sucrose

Question 140

140. Which Austrian physicist first postulated the existence of the neutrino in December 1930?

Answer 140

140. Wolfgang Pauli

Question 141

141. Identified by British geologist Roderick Murchison and named after a Celtic tribe of Wales, which geologic period beginning 443.8 million years ago saw the appearance of jawed and bony fish, as well as the beginning of life on land in the form of mosses? It lies between the Ordovician and the Devonian periods.

Answer 141

141. Silurian

Question 142

142. In trigonometry, what function is the reciprocal of sine (i.e. the ratio of the hypotenuse over the opposite side)?

Answer 142

142. Cosecant

Question 143

143. One of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower, which French naturalist is best known for his 1817 work ‘Le Regne Animal’ (‘The Animal World’)? Sometimes called the ‘father of palaeontology’, he give the mastodon its name, and was an opponent of early theories of evolution by Lamarck and Saint-Hilaire.

Answer 143

143. Georges Cuvier

Question 144

144. ⅓πr2h (where r is the radius and h the height) is the formula for the volume of what three-dimensional geometric structure?

Answer 144

144. Cone

Question 145

145. The American physicist Carl David Anderson is best remembered for his discovery of which elementary particle in 1932, for which he won the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics? He also discovered the muon in 1936, while studying cosmic radiation.

Answer 145

145. Positron/ Anti-electron

Question 146

146. Which English chemist is known for his discovery of several alkali and alkaline earth metals, such as sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium?

Answer 146

146. Sir Humphrey Davy

Question 147

147. Dev Patel played which title character in the 2015 film ‘The Man Who Knew Infinity’? A brilliant, self-taught mathematician, he died at the age of 32 in Madras in 1920.

Answer 147

147. Srinivasa Ramanujan

Question 148

148. Born 1905, which Austro-Hungarian biochemist gives his name to two rules that helped lead to the discovery of the structure of DNA? The more famous rule states that in DNA, the number of guanine units equals the number of cytosine units, and the number of adenine units equals the number of thymine units – thus hinting at its base pair makeup.

Answer 148

148. Erwin Chargaff

Question 149

149. In organic chemistry, what name is given to isomers of a compound that differ only in the position of the protons and electrons, with the carbon skeleton essentially unchanged? A common example is a ‘keto-enol’ type, with the ‘keto’ (aldehyde) and ‘enol’ (alcohol) forms readily interconverting between themselves.

Answer 149

149. Tautomers

Question 150

150. The process known as galvanization commonly involves applying a protective coating of which metal to iron or steel, so as to prevent corrosion and rusting?

Answer 150

150. Zinc

Question 151

151. Which polymath produced the book (published in 1665) showing highly-detailed illustrations of various plants and animals seen through magnifying lenses, including this diagram of a flea?

Answer 151

151. Robert Hooke/ ‘Micrographia’

Question 152

152. In quantum mechanics, what term denotes the phenomenon where a particle passes through a barrier that it classically cannot surmount? It plays a role in phenomena such as nuclear fusion in the Sun, and has important applications such as the microscope known as the STM.

Answer 152

152. Tunneling

Question 153

153. Named after a Dutch astronomer and mathematician born in 1580, what is the name of this law in optics that relates the angles of incidence and refraction when light passes through a boundary between two different isotropic media?

Answer 153

153. Snell’s Law

Question 154

154. As in the particle accelerator at CERN that played a key role in the detection of the Higgs boson, for what does the letter ‘H’ in LHC stand?

Answer 154

154. Hadron (Large Hadron Collider)

Question 155

155. In the radioactive process known as alpha decay, an alpha particle is produced, which is identical to the nucleus of which chemical element?

Answer 155

155. Helium

Question 156

156. The Chinese pharmaceutical chemist Tu Youyou was a joint-recipient of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for her discovery of which anti-malarial medication? Also known as qinghaosu in Chinese, it is isolated from the sweet wormwood, a herb employed in Chinese traditional medicine.

Answer 156

156. Artemisinin

Question 157

157. Which Austrian-born scientist was awarded the 1945 Nobel Prize for Physics for his discovery of the eponymous Exclusion Principle?

Answer 157

157. Wolfgang Pauli

Question 158

158. Commonly seen in cooking when droplets of water skitters across the surface of a pan heated to just the right temperature, which 18th-century German doctor gives his name to the physical phenomenon in which a liquid in contact with a surface much hotter than its boiling point produces an insulating vapor that repulses and keeps the liquid hovering just above the surface?

Answer 158

158. Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost

Question 159

159. In mechanics, the _______________ of a body is its mass multiplied by its velocity.

Answer 159

159. Momentum

Question 160

160. Credited with having devised the modern system of chemical symbols and formulae, which Swedish chemist (born 1779) also discovered or identified elements such as cerium, thorium and selenium?

Answer 160

160. Jons Jacob Berzelius

Question 161

161. ____________ acid metabolism (CMA) is a carbon fixation pathway that evolved in some plants (such as cacti, pineapple and orchids) as an adaptation to arid conditions., where the stomata (openings) in the leaves remain closed all day to reduced water loss and open only at night to collect carbon dioxide. For what does the ‘C’ stand, after a family of succulent dicotyledons in which this mechanism was first discovered?

Answer 161

161. Crassulacean

Question 162

162. Defined as one cycle per second, the SI unit for frequency is named after which German physicist?

Answer 162

162. Heinrich Hertz

Question 163

163. In chemistry, organic compounds are classified as either aromatic (i.e. linked together to form a stable ring structure such as benzene), or __________? The second group includes the alkanes, alkenes and alkynes, and can be either straight or branched.

Answer 163

163. Aliphatic

Question 164

164. Which term in material science refers to a solid’s ability to deform under TENSILE stress, i.e. its ability to be stretched into a wire? This is distinct from malleability, which refers to its ability to deform under COMPRESSIVE stress (e.g. hammered or pressed into sheets).

Answer 164

164. Ductility

Question 165

165. Responsible for blocking harmful ultraviolet radiation, the ozone layer is located in which layer of the earth’s atmosphere?

Answer 165

165. Stratosphere

Question 166

166. Named after the 19th-century Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann, the Boltzmann constant is a physical constant that relates energy at the particle level with temperature, and is represented by which letter of the alphabet?

Answer 166

166. k

Question 167

167. Winner of the Enrico Fermi Award in 1968, which American theoretical physicist worked on the Manhattan Project and helped design the hydrogen bomb in the 1950s? He is known for describing a process (with George Breit) in which pure light can potentially be transformed into matter, and is generally credited with popularizing the term ‘black hole’ when he used it in a 1967 lecture.

Answer 167

167. John Archibald Wheeler

Question 168

168. There are six members of Group 2 of the periodic table, known collectively as the alkaline earth metals. The first two are beryllium and magnesium. NAME ANY TWO of the other four.

Answer 168

168. Calcium/ Strontium/ Barium/ Radium

Question 169

169. First discovered in 1846 by the German chemist Justus von Liebig, which non-essential amino acid, whose name derives from the Greek for ‘cheese’, can be synthesized in the body from phenylalanine? It acts as precursors for the synthesis of important biological compounds such as dopamine, adrenaline and the thyroid hormones.

Answer 169

169. Tyrosine

Question 170

170. Which Swedish physicist gives his name to a unit of length equivalent to one ten-billionth of a metre, or 0.1 nanometre?

Answer 170

170. Anders Jonas Angstrom

Question 171

171. Discovered by the Swedish chemist George Brandt in 1735, which element derives its name from a type of small sprite in Germanic folklore?

Answer 171

171. Cobalt (from kobold)

Question 172

172. Which silvery element, with atomic number 3, is the lightest metal under standard conditions?

Answer 172

172. Lithium

Question 173

173. The ‘Transfermium Wars’ was a major controversy starting in the 1960s between the Americans and Soviets regarding the naming of then-newly discovered elements 104 to 106. After which nuclear physicist and director of the Soviet atomic bomb project did the Soviets want element 104 to be named, although eventually it was called rutherfordium?

Answer 173

173. Igor Kurchatov

Question 174

174. With which American geneticist and Nobel laureate would you associate the experiment shown here?

Answer 174

174. Thomas Hunt Morgan

Question 175

175. This is a diagram showing the set up of which classic experiment that demonstrated that the spatial orientation of angular momentum is quantized?

Answer 175

175. Stern-Gerlach experiment

Question 176

176. The memoirs of the American scientist Robert Brown, published in 2010, is entitled ‘How I Killed _________ And Why It Had It Coming’? A professor at Caltech since 2003, Brown and his team has discovered many TNOs, and was involved in the Haumea controversy involving a Spanish team led by Jose Luis Ortiz Moreno.

Answer 176

176. Pluto

Question 177

177. Named after the Russian organic chemist who observed and stated it, which empirical rule for the prediction of the favored alkene product in elimination reactions essential indicates that the most substituted product will be the most stable, and therefore the most favored.

Answer 177

177. Zaitsev’s Rule

Question 178

178. Sharing the general formula XY(Si,Al)2O6, which group of important rock-forming inosilicate minerals found in many igneous and metamorphic rocks derive their name from the ancient Greek for ‘fire stranger’, because they sometimes appear as crystals in volcanic glass?

Answer 178

178. Pyroxene

Question 179

179. In quantum physics, WHICH ‘E’ refers to the phenomenon whereby multiple particles are linked together in a way such that the measurement of one particle’s quantum state determines the possible quantum states of the other particles, even when the particles are separated by a large distance?

Answer 179

179. Entanglement

Question 180

180. A defining feature of the phylum Chordata, WHAT NINE-LETTER TERM denotes the flexible rod made out of a material similar to cartilage, ventral to the neural tube, which acts as a site of muscle attachment and as a vertebral precursor?

Answer 180

180. Notochord

Question 181

181. Coined in 1884 by the British scientist Frederick Guthrie, WHICH EIGHT-LETTER TERM describes, in chemistry, a mixture of substances (in fixed proportions) that melts and freezes at a single temperature that is lower than the melting points of the separate constituents or of any other mixture of them?

Answer 181

181. Eutectic

Question 182

182. Derived from the Latin for one’s great-great-great grandfather, WHICH TERM IN BIOLOGY denotes an evolutionary throwback, e.g. traits reappearing that had disappeared generations before? Examples include the presence of hindlegs on snakes and presence of a vestigial tail in human babies.

Answer 182

182. Atavism

Question 183

183. In thermodynamics, which two-word term denotes the end-point of a phase equilibrium curve, when a liquid and its vapor become identical and can co-exist?

Answer 183

183. Critical point

Question 184

184. In chemistry, what term describes a compound or substance that can react both as an acid as well as a base? Examples include oxides of aluminum and beryllium as well as amino acids (whose carboxyl group can lose a proton and amine group can accept a proton).

Answer 184

184. Amphoteric

Question 185

185. Which Japanese astrophysicist gives his name to the red line seen on this diagram, indicating the behavior of infant stars of less than 3 solar masses in their early phases of evolution? While slowly contracting, the star becomes several times less luminous but staying at roughly the same surface temperature, before ultimately joining the main sequence.

Answer 185

185. Chushiro Hayashi (Hayashi track)

Question 186

186. Discovered by the Norwegian amateur mineralogist Morten Thrane Esmark in 1829 and named after a mythological deity, which weakly radioactive element belonging to the actinide series has been suggested as a potent nuclear power source and a possible replacement to uranium and plutonium?

Answer 186

186. Thorium

Question 187

187. From the Greek root meaning ‘to strangle’, what collective name did the Dutch chemist Anton Eduard van Arkel give to the chemical elements in group 15 of the periodic table including nitrogen, phosphorous and arsenic? The name is derived from the choking or stifling property of nitrogen gas.

Answer 187

187. Pnictogen/ Pnigogen

Question 188

188. Derived from the Greek root for ‘horn’, which fibrous structural protein is responsible for protecting epithelial cells from damage, and is present in mammalian skin, hair, nails and hooves?

Answer 188

188. Keratin

Question 189

189. The 19th-century English fossil collector and amateur palaeontologist Mary Anning is credited with discovering the skeletons of these two marine reptiles. Name EITHER one.

Answer 189

189. Ichthyosaur and Plesiosaur

Question 190

190. Winning the 1954 Noble Prize in Physics for his ‘fundamental research in Quantum Mechanics, especially in the statistical interpretation of the wave function’, which scientist also gives his name (together with Fritz Haber) to the cycle in thermochemistry that is concerned with the formation of an ionic compound from the reaction of a metal with a halogen or other non-metallic element?

Answer 190

190. Max Born

Question 191

191. Which scientist gives his name to the physical law indicated by the diagram and equation shown?

Answer 191

191. Isaac Newton (Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation)

Question 192

192. Named after the Noongar (West Australian indigenous) word for ‘smoke’, what term is given to a group of plant growth regulators found in the smoke of burning plant material which stimulate the germination of seeds?

Answer 192

192. Karrikin

Question 193

193. An irrational number indicated by , the golden ratio was studied by Euclid and has featured in works by Da Vinci, Le Corbusier and Satie due to its aesthetically-pleasing properties. By what Greek letter is the golden ratio represented?

Answer 193

193. Phi (φ)

Question 194

194. Also called recoil-free nuclear resonance flourescence, which German physicist won the 1961 Nobel Prize in Physics for the physical phenomenon since named after him, in which a nucleus emits or absorbs gamma radiation without loss of energy to nuclear recoil?

Answer 194

194. Rudolf Mossbauer (the Mossbauer effect)

Question 195

195. In organic chemistry, what term is used to denote unsaturated hydrocarbons containing at least one carbon-carbon triple bond, with the general chemical formula CnH2n-2?

Answer 195

195. Alkynes

Question 196

196. Named after the Dutch physicist who predicted it in 1948, which effect arises from the quantum theory of electromagnetic radiation in which the energy present in empty space actually produces a tiny force between two objects? It has potential significant applications in fields such as nanotechnology.

Answer 196

196. Casimir Effect

Question 197

197. Discovered in 1948 in Sao Paulo by three Brazilian physiologists & pharmacologists and so named because of the effect of snake venom on intestinal smooth muscle (which was noted to slowly contract), which peptide inflammatory mediator is a potent blood pressure-lowering agent and also responsible for the dry cough in some patients taking the ACE-inhibitor group of antihypertensive medications?

Answer 197

197. Bradykinin

Question 198

198. The Deville process, Bayer process, Hall-Heroult process and Wohler process are all industrial processes involved in the production of which metallic element? Most of them utilize bauxite as the ore from which it is produced.

Answer 198

198. Aluminum

Question 199

199. In physics, what term denotes the spreading of waves around obstacles or when they encounter slits? The phenomenon is the result of interference and is most pronounced when the wavelength of the wave is comparable to the dimensions of the obstacle.

Answer 199

199. Diffraction

Question 200

200. In mathematics, a perfect number is a positive integer that is equal to the sum of its positive divisors (excluding itself). The first perfect number is 6 (1+2+3); which is the second perfect number?

Answer 200

200. 28 (1+2+4+7+14)

Question 201

201. Meaning ‘that which attacks you’ in the local language, a piteraq is a cold katabatic wind that sweeps down the east coast of which island, usually in the autumn and winter period? In 1970 the town of Tasillaq was heavily damaged by the strongest piteraq ever documented.

Answer 201

201. Greenland

Question 202

202. What does the ‘O’ stand for in the scientific acronym OLED, referring to the improved version of light-emitting diode that has found commercial application in the creation of thin and flexible display panels?

Answer 202

202. Organic

Question 203

203. Named by Steven Weinberg as one of ’13 best science books for the general reader’, ‘The Inflationary Universe’ (published 1997) is a work by which American physicist and cosmologist, who first developed the theory of cosmic inflation when he was a junior particle physicist at Cornell University in 1979?

Answer 203

203. Alan Guth

Question 204

204. Covering the period from 66 million years to the present day, which geological era is also known as the ‘Age of Mammals’ due to the large mammals that dominated it? Its name derives from the Greek for ‘new life’.

Answer 204

204. Cenozoic

Question 205

205. Considered the most important equation in the field of electrochemistry, it relates reduction potential of an electrochemical reaction to the standard electrode potential, temperature and activities of the species – and is named after WHICH GERMAN chemist and Nobel laureate who formulated it in 1887?

Answer 205

205. Walther Nernst

Question 206

206. In mathematics, the formula/ theorem shown here links complex number theory to trigonometry, and is named after which French mathematician? A friend of Isaac Newton and Edmond Halley, he also wrote the 1718 book on probability theory ‘The Doctrine of Chances’, said to be much prized by gamblers.

Answer 206

206. Abraham de Moivre

Question 207

207. Relating variables such as the change in velocity of a rocket with its initial mass (with propellant) and dry mass, the equation shown here is named after which Soviet pioneer of astronautic theory who independently developed and published it in 1903, although it had been derived by the British mathematician William Moore almost a century earlier?

Answer 207

207. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Question 208

208. Of interest from a purely mathematical point of view as well as having practical applications in weather modelling, design of aircraft/ cars and study of blood-flow, the general equation shown here arise mainly from applying Newton’s Second Law to fluid motion, and is one of several equations named after a French engineer and Irish physicist. What is this eponymous equation?

Answer 208

208. Navier-Stokes equation(s)

Question 209

209. In chemistry, which term refers to a cyclic ether with a three-membered ring, with a basic structure containing an oxygen atom attached to two adjacent carbon atoms approximating an equilateral triangle? Typically highly reactive, their practical applications include being used as antifreezes and fumigants.

Answer 209

209. Epoxide

Question 210

210. Popularly known as the ‘Dining Philosophers Problem’ in which five philosophers sitting at a dining table alternates between eating and thinking such that nobody starves, this thought problem used in concurrent algorithm design to illustrate synchronization issues was originally formulated in 1965 by which Dutch pioneer in computer science?

Answer 210

210. Edsger W. Dijkstra

Question 211

211. Predicting the existence of mesons as the carrier particles of the strong nuclear force, which theoretical physicist became the first Japanese to be awarded a Nobel Prize when he won the Physics prize in 1949? He also gives his name to an eponymous interaction in particle physics between a scalar field and a Dirac field.

Answer 211

211. Hideki Yukawa

Question 212

212. A co-factor in DNA synthesis as well as in the metabolism of fatty and amino acids, vitamin B12 plays critical roles in the normal functioning of the human nervous as well as hematopoietic systems. Its structure consists of a corrin ring, with which biochemically rare chemical element at its centre?

Answer 212

212. Cobalt (vitamin B12 is also known as cobalamin)

Question 213

213. Discovered in the Bissekty Formation in the Kyzylkum Desert, this extinct theropod dinosaur genus has been postulated as the musing link between smaller tyrannosauroids and the large Tyrannosaur. It is named after which historical figure, who founded an empire in the same region more than six centuries earlier.

Answer 213

213. Timur/ Tamerlane (Timurlengia)

Question 214

214. Named after two French scientists who discovered it in 1820, which eponymous law in magnetostatics provides a fundamental quantitative relationship between an electric current (its magnitude, direction, length and proximity) and the magnetic it produces? It plays a similar role to Coulomb’s law in electrostatics.

Answer 214

214. Biot-Savart law

Question 215

215. First isolated by the English chemist Smithson Tennant in 1803, which brittle silvery-white transitional element is the second densest element (after osmium) and also the most corrosion-resistant? Found in much larger abundance in meteorites than on Earth, its high concentration in the clay layer at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary gave rise to the Alvarez hypothesis about extinction of dinosaurs.

Answer 215

215. Iridium

Question 216

216. The diagram illustrates a scientific device used for precision measurement of capacitance, as well as a physical law regarding black body radiation, that are named after a pair of German scientists who were also cousins (one of whom was a Nobel laureate). What is their shared surname?

Answer 216

216. Wien (Wien’s bride – Max Wien; Wien’s displacement law – Wilhelm Wien)

Question 217

217. In botanical cell biology, which term meaning ‘sac-like’ or ‘pouch-like’ in Greek refers to a membrane-bound compartment inside chloroplasts, in which the light-dependent reactions of photosynthesis take place? They commonly form up into stacks which are known as grana.

Answer 217

217. Thylakoid

Question 218

218. Named after a US electrical engineer who co-invented Ethernet and co-founded 3Com, which law in telecommunications states that the effect of a network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users?

Answer 218

218. Metcalfe’s Law

Question 219

219. One of the controversies in paleontology surrounds the appropriate classification of the brontosaurus (top). Despite recent research suggesting it to be a valid separate genus, it has long been considered a junior synonym of which other herbivorous sauropod (bottom), whose name means ‘deceptive lizard’?

Answer 219

219. Apatosaurus

Question 220

220. In fluid dynamics, turbulent flow is characterized by the presence of recirculation and eddies. In contrast, what type of flow (also known as streamline flow) occurs when the fluid flows in smooth parallel layers, with orderly motion of particles?

Answer 220

220. Laminar flow

Question 221

221. The modern design of all thermonuclear weapons (or hydrogen bombs) in the USA follow what is known as the ‘Teller-______ Configuration’, named after its two chief contributors who developed it in 1951, although Edward Teller has been given the title of ‘Father of the H-Bomb’. Who is the other figure - a nuclear physicist, born 1909 in Lviv, who made the key suggestion that compression was essential to explosion and that shock waves from a fission bomb could produce the compression needed?

Answer 221

221. Stanislaw Ulam

Question 222

222. Discovered in 1957 by the British bacteriologist Alick Isaacs and the Swiss microbiologist Jean Lindenmann, what name is given to any of several related cytokine proteins produced by the body’s cells as a defensive response against pathogens (e.g. viruses) and tumour cells? So named because of their ability to disrupt viral proliferation, three forms (alpha, beta and gamma) have been recognized.

Answer 222

222. Interferons

Question 223

223. Measured in farads, which property of an electrical conductor refers to the amount of electric charge that can be stored on it per unit change in the electrical potential?

Answer 223

223. Capacitance

Question 224

224. Also known as optical isomers, which term in chemistry denotes one of two stereoisomers that are mirror images of each other and hence not superimposable? They share identical physical and chemical properties, except for their ability to rotate plane-polarized light.

Answer 224

224. Enantiomer

Question 225

225. In the history of science, the Law of Segregation (First Law), the Law of Independent Assortment (Second Law) and the Law of Dominance (Third Law), proposed between 1865 and 1866, are associated with which individual?

Answer 225

225. Gregor Mendel

Question 226

226. Named after the Australian-born British physicist and X-ray crystallographer who discovered it in 1912, which law defines the relationship between the spacing of atomic planes in crystals and the angle of incidence at which the produce the most intense reflections of electromagnetic & particle waves?

Answer 226

226. Bragg’s Law

Question 227

227. First used and translated into English by the physicist Erwin Schrodinger in a letter to Albert Einstein (who in turn called it ‘spooky action at a distance’), which term in quantum physics denotes the phenomenon by which particles of energy or matter can be correlated to predictably interact with each other regardless of how far apart they are?

Answer 227

227. Entanglement

Question 228

228. Which SI-derived unit can also be expressed in the following ways, using various SI base and derived units

Answer 228

228. Henry (electrical inductance)

Question 229

229. From the Hawaiian meaning ‘smooth unbroken lava’, which term denotes basaltic lava that has a billowy undulating surface due to the movement of very fluid lava under the congealing surface crust. This is distinguished from a’a, which is characterized by a rough surface composed of broken lava blocks.

Answer 229

229. Pahoehoe

Question 230

230. Described by many (including Einstein) as the most important woman in the history of mathematics, which Bavarian-born algebra specialist gives her name to the eponymous theorem (which she proved in 1915) that explains the connection between symmetry and conservation laws?

Answer 230

230. Emmy Noether

Question 231

231. In thermodynamics, which term (represented by ‘H’) refers to the system’s total internal energy plus the product of its pressure and volume (i.e. H = U + PV)? Its SI unit of measurement is the joule.

Answer 231

231. Enthalpy

Question 232

232. Formerly known as xantheose, which bitter alkaloid of the cacao plant (with formula C7H8N4O2) is found in chocolate, tea leaves and the kola nut? It is the reason why animals such as dogs succumb to chocolate poisoning because they metabolize

Answer 232

232. Theobromine

Question 233

233. Named after an American electrical engineer and a British physicist who first predicted its existence independently and almost simultaneously, which layer of ionized gas in the earth’s ionosphere reflects medium-frequency radio waves, and is the basis for the ‘skywave’ (or ‘skip’) propagation technique for long-distance radio-communication? It is also known as the E layer.

Answer 233

233. Kennelly-Heaviside layer

Question 234

234. Name EITHER of the elements marked by the question marks. They are the last two (as of now) alkali metals, with atomic numbers 55 and 87 respectively.

Answer 234

234. Caesium (Cs)/ Francium (Fr)

Question 235

235. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (jointly with Camillo Golgi) in 1906, which Spanish neuroscientist and pathologist’s decisive neuroanatomical work led to the concept of the ‘neuron doctrine’ – that the nervous system is made up of discrete individual cells?

Answer 235

235. Santiago Ramon y Cajal

Question 236

236. Subdivided into the Llandovery, Wenlock, Ludlow and Přídolí epochs, which geologic period from 443.8 million years ago saw the diversification of jawed fish and bony fish? The shortest period of the Paleozoic Era, it takes its name from a Celtic tribe of Wales.

Answer 236

236. Silurian

Question 237

237. A finger-bone from a juvenile female first discovered in a permafrost cave in 2008, Denisova hominins are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans in the genus Homo who were genetically distinct from Neanderthals and modern humans. In which mountain range (where the rivers Irtysh and Ob have their headwaters) was this discovery made?

Answer 237

237. Altai Mountains

Question 238

238. Named after the two American geneticists who conducted it in 1952, which seminal experiment helped to confirm that DNA is genetic material (rather than proteins as was generally thought at the time)? It showed that when bacteriophages, which are composed of DNA and protein, infect bacteria, their DNA enters the host bacterial cell, but most of their protein does not.

Answer 238

238. Hershey-Chase experiment

Question 239

239. Carl David Anderson’s discovery of the positron in 1932 represented one of the great triumphs of theoretical physics, as its existence had been predicted in a 1928 paper by which physicist? The original mathematical formula is shown here.

Answer 239

239. Paul Dirac

Question 240

240. Winning Andrew Fire and Craig C. Mello the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, RNAi is the process in which RNA molecules suppress gene expression or translation by neutralizing targeted mRNA molecules - essentially ‘silencing’ the gene. For what does the ‘i’ in RNAi stand?

Answer 240

240. Interference

Question 241

241. Although sometimes attributed to Pythagoras, the theorem that if A, B, and C are distinct points on a circle where the line AC is a diameter, then the angle ∠ABC is a right angle is named after which pre-Socratic Greek philosopher and mathematician, who is said to have offered an ox to Apollo as thanksgiving for his discovery?

Answer 241

241. Thales of Miletus

Question 242

242. Mentioned as ‘the smartest living physicist’ in a 1990 poll of cosmologist and to date the only physicist to be awarded mathematics’ Field Medal, which New Jersey-born specialist in the field of supersymmetric quantum field theories was the first to conjecture the so-called ‘M Theory’, which combined the existing five string theories into one and is currently a leading candidate as a unifying theory of all the fundamental forces of nature?

Answer 242

242. Edward Witten

Question 243

243. Named after the French chemist who established it in 1887, which law in thermodynamics states that the partial vapour pressure of each component of an ideal mixture of liquids is equal to the vapour pressure of the pure component multiplied by its mole fraction in the mixture?

Answer 243

243. Raoult’s Law (after Francois-Marie Raoult)

Question 244

244. In physical oceanography, which term from the Greek meaning ‘open sea’ refers to the ecological realm that includes the entire ocean water column that lies above the bottom layer (or benthic zone)? It is subdivided into five horizontal divisions based on the depth, including the meso-, the bathy-, the abysso- and the hado-.

Answer 244

244. Pelagic zone

Question 245

245. Developed by (amongst others) Seiji Ogawa at AT&T Bell Laboratories, the medical imaging technique known as fMRI is a functional neuroimaging procedure using MRI technology that measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow, and has both research and clinical applications. For what does the ‘f’ in fMRI stand?

Answer 245

245. Functional

Question 246

246. From the Greek meaning ‘quick birth’, which peptide hormone released by the posterior pituitary causes the let-down of milk in lactating mothers as well as the contraction of cervix in the second and third stages of labour?

Answer 246

246. Oxytocin

Question 247

247. A ramjet is a type of jet engine that uses the engine’s forward motion to compress incoming air. A variant of the ramjet, known as the scramjet, is able to produce a higher specific impulse. For what do the letters ‘SC’ in ‘scramjet’ refer?

Answer 247

247. Supersonic combustion

Question 248

248. Born 1928 in Syracuse, New York, which American microbiologist and biophysicist is best known (with his colleague George E. Fox) for defining the new domain of Archaea in 1977, based on the sequencing of ribosomal RNA genes?

Answer 248

248. Carl Woese

Question 249

249. In 1637, the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat scribbled his famous comment about what would become known as Fermat’s Last Theorem, on the margins of a copy of an ancient Greek text known as the ‘Arithmetica’ – by which Alexandrian mathematician who died between AD 285 and 299?

Answer 249

249. Diophantus

Question 250

250. From the German meaning ‘building up’, which principle in chemistry states that, hypothetically, electrons orbiting one or more atoms fill the lowest available energy levels before filling higher levels (e.g., 1s before 2s), hence harmonizing into the most stable possible electronic configuration? The order in which these orbitals are filled is given by the n + ℓ rule, also known as the Madelung rule.

Answer 250

250. Aufbau principle

Question 251

251. Discovered in the 1920s by the husband-and-wife team of Walter Noddack & Ida Tacke together with Otto Berg, which transition metal with atomic number 75 is the only element (to date) to be named after a major river of the world?

Answer 251

251. Rhenium (after the Rhine)

Question 252

252.

Answer 252

252. Avermectins

Question 253

253. In glaciology, what name (from the German for ‘mountain cleft’) is given to a crevasse that forms where moving glacier ice separates from the stagnant ice or firn above, which usually presents obstacles for mountaineers?

Answer 253

253. Bergschrund

Question 254

254. Critical to the formation of red blood cells and normal functioning of the nervous system, vitamin B12 is the most chemically complex of all the vitamins. It consists of a corrin ring with a central atom of which metal?

Answer 254

254. Cobalt (also known as cobalamin)

Question 255

255. One of the most accurately measured physical constants, with a value of 1.0973731568508 × 107 per metre, it represents the limiting value of the highest wavenumber (the inverse wavelength) of any photon that can be emitted from the hydrogen atom, and is named after which Swedish physicist born in 1854?

Answer 255

255. Johannes Rydberg

Question 256

256. In organic chemistry, hydrocarbons are classified either as aromatic (cyclic planar molecular structure with stable rings of resonance bonds), or _________? Examples of this group include the alkanes and alkenes (of which butane is shown here)

Answer 256

256. Aliphatic

Question 257

257. Born 1875 in Kent, which British geneticist gives his name to the diagram used by biologists to predict the outcome of a particular cross or breeding experiment?

Answer 257

257. Reginald C. Punnett (the Punnett Square)

Question 258

258. Named after two physical chemists (one Danish and one English) who proposed it independently, which chemical theory posits that when an acid and a base react with each other, the acid forms a conjugate base, and the base forms its conjugate acid by exchange of a proton (the hydrogen cation, or H+)?

Answer 258

258. Brønsted–Lowry theory

Question 259

259. Identify this scientific individual.

Answer 259

259. Werner Heisenberg

Question 260

260. From the Greek for ‘complete bone’, which term denotes the largest infraclass of the Actinopterygii (ray-finned fishes) and make up 96% of all extant species of fish? Ranging from the giant oarfish to the tiny anglerfish, they are characterized by having a movable premaxilla and homocercal tail in which the upper and lower halves are about equal.

Answer 260

260. Teleost

Question 261

261. Named after an 18th-century Swiss polymath and 19th-century German scientist, which law commonly applied in chemical analysis and measurement relates the attenuation of light to the properties of the material through which the light is travelling?

Answer 261

261. Beer-Lambert Law

Question 262

262. From the Old Norse for ‘great edge’, what two-word alliterative term refers to the series of submarine landslides in the Norwegian Sea that occurred between approximately 8,400 and 2,200 years ago? The resulting tsunamis were deemed responsible for washing away the land-bridge connecting the island of Great Britain with continental Europe.

Answer 262

262. Storegga Slides

Question 263

263. Revealed in April 2019 as the first image of a black hole’s event horizon, it was created by telescopic observation of M87 - a supergiant elliptical galaxy in which constellation?

Answer 263

263. Virgo

Question 264

264. Literally from the Greek meaning ‘coal-like’, which hard, compact variety of coal is the highest ranking, with the highest carbon content and fewest impurities?

Answer 264

264. Anthracite

Question 265

265. Named after a Scottish physicist born in 1781, which term in optics refers to the angle of incidence in which light of a particular polarization is perfectly transmitted through a transparent dielectric surface with no reflection? Polarized sunglasses use this principle to reduce glare from the sun reflected off horizontal surfaces such as water or road.

Answer 265

265. Brewster’s angle (after Sir David Brewster)

Question 266

266. Named after a 20th-century Hungarian-American mathematician and aerospace engineer, what three-word term refers to a repeating pattern of swirling vortices that is responsible for phenomena such as the ‘singing’ of suspended power lines, and also the ability of seals to track underwater prey by the vibration of their whiskers?

Answer 266

266. Karman vortex street

Question 267

267. Published from 1798 to 1825 ‘, the five-volume ‘Treatise of Celestial Mechanics’ was the magnum opus of which French polymath sometimes referred to as the ‘Newton of France’? He was one of the first scientists to postulate the existence of black holes, and also developed the nebular hypothesis of the origin of the Solar System.

Answer 267

267. Pierre-Simon Laplace

Question 268

268. Possibly inspired by the works of Valentin Naboth (a German astronomer & astrologer) and Paul Wittich (a Silesian mathematician), who in the late 16th century published a model of the solar system that sought to combine the mathematical benefits of the Copernician system with the philosophical benefits of the Ptolemaic system? The Earth is at the center of the universe, with the Sun and Moon and other stars revolving around it, while the other planets revolve around the Sun.

Answer 268

268. Tycho Brahe

Question 269

269. Named amongst ‘The Trimates’ (three women who studied hominids in their natural environments) together with Dian Fossey and Jane Goddall, Birute Galdikas is a Lithuanian-Canadian anthropologist who specializes in the study of which of the great apes?

Answer 269

269. Orangutans

Question 270

270. In genetics, what is the term given to the first step of gene expression, where a segment of DNA is copied into messenger RNA by the enzyme RNA polymerase?

Answer 270

270. Transcription

Question 271

271. More commonly encountered in the realm of science fiction, what is the more familiar name given to the theoretical structure known as an Einstein-Rosen bridge?

Answer 271

271. Wormhole

Question 272

272. Represented by the formula i2 = j2 = k2 = ijk = −1, which number system that extends complex number into 3-dimensions was discovered by the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton in 1843? He was so pleased with his discovery that he scratched the fundamental formula of quaternion algebra into the stone of the Brougham bridge along Dublin’s Royal Canal.

Answer 272

272. Quarternions

Question 273

273. Born 1887 in Moscow, which Russian geneticist and botanist gives his name to ‘centers of origin’ - regions of the world where a group of organisms (plants in his case) first developed its distinctive properties?

Answer 273

273. Nikolai Vavilov (Vavilov centers)

Question 274

274. Found in dipterous insects (using only a single pair of wings to fly), what name is given to the tiny dumbbell-shaped organs that are modified from their hindwings that provide guidance and balance during fast acrobatic maneuvers in flight?

Answer 274

274. Halteres

Question 275

275. In wave mechanics, what name is given to the maximum displacement or distance moved by a point on a vibrating body or wave measured from its equilibrium position?

Answer 275

275. Amplitude

Question 276

276. Affecting about 1 in 17500 newborns, the genetic disease phenylketonuria (PKU) is due to a deficiency in the enzyme that under normal circumstances convert phenylalanine to which other amino acid?

Answer 276

276. Tyrosine

Question 277

277. Born 1844, which Russian civil engineer gives his name to the effect whereby a small rocky object (e.g. meteoroid or small asteroid) would, over long periods of time, be noticeably nudge in its orbit by the slight push created when it absorbs sunlight and then re-emits the energy as heat?

Answer 277

277. Ivan Osipovich Yarkovsky

Question 278

278. Noted for his achievements in fields as diverse as biology, astronomy, literature and philosophy, which 19th-century English polymath is perhaps best known for coining the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ in his 1864 work ‘Principles of Biology’?

Answer 278

278. Herbert Spencer

Question 279

279. Its name also referring to a type of Swiss cheese, which term refers to an unstable pinnacle or tower of ice on a glacier, often formed by intersecting crevasses, and which might topple with little warning?

Answer 279

279. Serac

Question 280

280. Carrying a different meaning in another scientific field, which nine-letter word in evolutionary biology refers to a process in which organisms diversify from an ancestral species into a multitude of new forms, e.g. due to adaptive change? An example is the different beak shapes of the finches noted by Darwin on the Galapagos Archipelago, as a result of adapting to different food sources.

Answer 280

280. Radiation

Question 281

281. Appearing in several equations in special relativity and denoted by the Greek lowercase gamma, the factor by which time, length, and relativistic mass change for an object while that object is moving is named after which Dutch scientist who shared the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics with Pieter Zeeman?

Answer 281

281. Hendrik Lorentz

Question 282

282. Its name probably deriving from an ancient maritime town in Asia Minor, which term refers to a cryptocrystalline form of silica composed of fine intergrowths of quartz and moganite, with varieties such as agate and onyx?

Answer 282

282. Chalcedony

Question 283

283. Dubbed the ‘Frankenstein Dinosaur’ because it possesses features that bridge the anatomical gap between the theropod and ornithischian dinosaurs, this amazing species is named after which country, where fossils (a vertbra and rib) were first discovered in 2005 by seven-year-old Diego Suarez in its Aysen Region?

Answer 283

283. Chile (Chilesaurus)

Question 284

284. Named after a 20th-century Spanish engineer who studied the phenomenon of wave breaking on sloping beaches, which dimensionless parameter relates the bed slope (θ) with the wave height (H), period (T) and gravitational acceleration (g)?

Answer 284

284. Iribarren number

Question 285

285. Often described as the opposite of déjà vu, which term of French borrowing meaning ‘never seen’ refers to the psychological phenomenon of experiencing a situation seemingly for the first time, despite rationally knowing that he or she has been in the situation before?

Answer 285

285. Jamais vu

Question 286

286. Synthesized in 1941 and named after the Greek for ‘unstable’ because of the short-lived nature of all its isotopes, which radioactive chemical element with atomic number 85 is the rarest naturally-occurring element in the earth’s crust, and a member of the halogens?

Answer 286

286. Astatine

Question 287

287. Winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Medicine/ Physiology together with Francois Jacob and Andre Lwoff, which French biochemist is noted for his work on the E.coli lac operon which led to the understanding of how the levels of some proteins in a cell are controlled? He also suggested the existence of messenger RNA molecues that are responsible for conveying genetic information from DNA to protein formation.

Answer 287

287. Jacques Monod

Question 288

288. Which American scientist was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery (since named after him) of the inelastic scattering of a photon by a charged particle (e.g. an electron), with the resultant decrease in energy and increase in wavelength of the photon?

Answer 288

288. Arthur Compton (the Compton effect)

Question 289

289. Born in Essex in 1842, which Nobel physics laureate discovered (amongst other things) argon, the reason why the sky is blue and predicted the existence of surface waves that impacted the fields of acoustics, seismology and oceanography?

Answer 289

289. Lord Rayleigh (John William Strutt)

Question 290

290. A modification to the ideal gas law (PV=nRT), the equation shown in the lower part of this annotated diagram is named after which physicist, born in 1837 in Leiden?

Answer 290

290. Johannes Diderik van der Waals

Question 291

291. Deficiency can produce symptoms such as hair loss, brittle nails and eczema, but is rarely seen because the amount needed is small and it is widely present in many foods - what is the six-letter common name of the water-soluble vitamin B7, also known previously as Vitamin H or coenzyme R?

Answer 291

291. Biotin

Question 292

292. Which American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate is known for winning a 1975 bet with Stephen Hawking about the nature of a black-hole in the constellation Cygnus; his controversial theory that wormholes can be used for time travel; and for being the scientific consultant on the Christopher Nolan film ‘Interstellar’?

Answer 292

292. Kip Thorne

Question 293

293. Born in Maine in 1855, which American physicist gives his name to the effect where a transverse electric field develops in a solid material when it carries an electrical current and is placed in a magnetic field that is perpendicular to the current? Practical applications include its use in magnetometers, sensors as well as spacecraft propulsion.

Answer 293

293. Edwin Hall (the Hall effect)

Question 294

294. Named after the 19th-century German chemist who discovered it, the Wohler synthesis is the conversion of ammonium nitrate into which organic compound? It was the first time an organic compound was produced from inorganic reactants.

Answer 294

294. Urea

Question 295

295. In geometry, which eight-letter term of Greek origin refers to either of the sides that are adjacent to the right angle (C1 and C2 in the diagram) in a right-angled triangle?

Answer 295

295. Cathetus

Question 296

296. Named as a runner-up for Time Person of the Year in 2016, which professor of chemistry and molecular & cell biology at University of California, Berkeley is best known for her collaboration with Emmanuelle Charpentier on the application of the CRISPR/Cas9 system for genomic editing? She is shown on the right of this photograph.

Answer 296

296. Jennifer Doudna

Question 297

297. Discovered by Carl D. Anderson and Seth Neddermeyer in 1936, which elementary subatomic particle is negatively-charged (like the electron), but 207 times heavier? Belonging to the lepton group of particles, it does not react with nuclei or other particles through the strong reaction.

Answer 297

297. Muon

Question 298

298. What name is given to the tissue between the xylem and phloem in the stem & root of a vascular plant? Although it does not carry out the transport functions of the other two tissue types, it is capable of producing more xylem and phloem by means of secondary growth.

Answer 298

298. Cambium

Question 299

299. Born in Amsterdam in 1933, which Dutch atmospheric chemist was awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone? He is also noted for his work in promoting the theory of nuclear winter, as well as popularizing the term ‘Anthropocene’ to describe a new epoch which sees drastic effects of human actions on the Earth.

Answer 299

299. Paul J. Crutzen

Question 300

300. The 1984 Nobel Prize in Physiology or medicine (awarded to Kohler and Milstein) and the 2018 Prize in Chemistry (Greg Winter) were given for their work in (respectively) the production and therapeutic use of which specific class of protein? Current examples in therapeutic use include Remicade, Humira and Herceptin, with applications in the treatment of autoimmune diseases and some cancers. (A two-word term is required)

Answer 300

300. Monoclonal antibodies

Question 301

301. Named after the British chemist who developed it, the Marsh test is a highly sensitive method in toxicology for the detection of which element, previously nicknamed the ‘inheritance powder’ as it was virtually untraceable?

Answer 301

301. Arsenic

Question 302

302. Born in 1964, which Mexican theoretical physicist gives his name to a speculative warp drive based on a solution of Einstein’s field equations in general relativity? A spacecraft could achieve apparent faster-than-light speed if a configurable energy-density field lower than that of a vacuum could be created.

Answer 302

302. Miguel Alcubierre (the Alcubierre drive)

Question 303

303. From the Greek for ‘not falling together’, what term in geometry refers to a line whose distance with a curve approaches zero as one or both of the x or y coordinates tends towards infinity?

Answer 303

303. Asymptote

Question 304

304. Which chemical element is a silvery-white metal used in alloys such as bronze and pewter, and whose symbol is derived from its Latin name ‘stannum’?

Answer 304

304. Tin (Sn)

Question 305

305. Born 1923 in Coventry, which British engineer gives his name to the eponymous criterion – the general measures of a system that defines the conditions needed for a nuclear fusion reactor to achieve net power? The conditions include a critical ignition temperature, maintaining it for a sufficient confinement time and with a sufficient ion density.

Answer 305

305. John D. Lawson (the Lawson criterion)

Question 306

306. Its name ultimately deriving from the Latin for ‘very hard stone’, which extrusive igneous rock low in silica content makes up more than 90% of all volcanic rock on earth, and also constitutes the Giant’s Causeway – a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Northern Ireland?

Answer 306

306. Basalt

Question 307

307. Discovered almost simultaneously in 1998 and hence given different names (one of which means ‘appetite’ in Greek), which neuropeptide produced predominantly in the hypothalamus is responsible for the regulation of arousal, wakefulness and appetite? Its deficiency leads to a form of narcolepsy resulting in excessive daytime sleepiness and loss of muscle tone. (You can give either of the two accepted names)

Answer 307

307. Orexin/ Hypocretin

Question 308

308. From the Greek meaning ‘fine, small, thin’, what name is given to any member of a class of subatomic particles that has half-integer spins and does not respond to the strong force? Examples include the electron and neutrino.

Answer 308

308. Lepton

Question 309

309. From the Latin for ‘leaping’, which term in geology refers to a specific type of particle transport by fluids such as wind or water causing the particles to travel in ballistic trajectories? The speed at which the flow can move particles is given by the Bagnold formula.

Answer 309

309. Saltation

Question 310

310. Which German-born British biochemist and physician was awarded the 1953 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of this critical process in cellular respiration?

Answer 310

310. Hans Adolf Krebs (the Krebs Cycle/ Citric Acid Cycle)

Question 311

311. Affecting countries & states such as the Philippines, Japan and Taiwan, what is the name for tropical cyclones that form in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, as compared to hurricanes (that form in the Atlantic and northeastern Pacific)?

Answer 311

311. Typhoons

Question 312

312. Designed in 1959 partly based on work by Grace Hopper (US computer scientist and navy rear-admiral), which 5-letter acronym refers to the computer-programming language still widely used in business and finance today?

Answer 312

312. COBOL

Question 313

313. In electrical science, which term denotes the opposition that an AC circuit presents to a current when a voltage is applied, and is the equivalent of resistance in a DC circuit? Sharing the same unit of measurement (ohm), it differs from resistance in that it has both magnitude and phase, whereas resistance only has magnitude.

Answer 313

313. Impedance

Question 314

314. Proposed in 1957, the BCS theory (abbreviated from the surnames of the three scientists involved) is the first microscopic theory of superconductivity since Kamerlingh Onnes’s 1911 discovery. Name TWO OF THE THREE scientists that gave the theory its name – all three won the Nobel Physics Prize in 1972.

Answer 314

314. John Bardeen/ Leon Cooper/ John Robert Schrieffer

Question 315

315. Consisting mainly of water as well as fibrous proteins such as collagen and heparin sulphate proteoglycans, what term refers to the tissue found in jellyfish that functions as an internal hydrostatic skeleton and supports their shapes?

Answer 315

315. Mesoglea

Question 316

316. Relating the height of the liquid in a capillary tube to factors such as the surface tension, tube radius and contact angle of the liquid on the tube wall, this law in fluid mechanics is named after which English scientist and physician who discovered it in 1719, also known for his work in smallpox vaccination and being a staunch Isaac Newton supporter?

Answer 316

316. James Jurin

Question 317

317. Of the seven elements that belong to Group 18 of the periodic table (also known as the noble gases), only one has a name that does not end with the two letters ‘-on’. Name it.

Answer 317

317. Helium

Question 318

318. With the formula (C6H10O5)n, which linear polysaccharide consisting of multiple beta (1-4) linked D-glucose units is an important structural component of the cell walls of green plants and some forms of algae?

Answer 318

318. Cellulose

Question 319

319. First described in 1889 by Othniel Charles Marsh, which herbivorous dinosaur’s name means ‘three-horned face’ from the Ancient Greek?

Answer 319

319. Triceratops

Question 320

320. In electronics, which 20th-century American theoretical physicist gives his name to this specific type of diode that allows current to flow not only from the anode to the cathode but also in the reverse direction when a certain breakdown voltage is reached, due to the presence of a heavily-doped p-n junction?

Answer 320

320. Clarence Zener

Question 321

321. In electrochemistry, the equation that relates the reduction potential of a reaction to the standard electrode potential, temperature and activities of the chemical species undergoing reduction and oxidation is named after which Nobel laureate born in West Prussia in 1864?

Answer 321

321. Walther Nernst

Question 322

322. The discovery of two radioactive elements was credited to Pierre and Marie Curie in 1898. One was radium, which was the other?

Answer 322

322. Polonium

Question 323

323. Named after a 20th-century Canadian physician and medical researcher, what two-word alliterative term denotes the inactive X-chromosome in a female somatic cell through a process known as lyonization? It appears as a dense structure of chromatin near the periphery of the nucleus.

Answer 323

323. Barr body

Question 324

324. Equal to one weber per square metre, after which Serbian-American scientist and inventor is the SI derived unit for magnetic flux density named?

Answer 324

324. Nikola Tesla

Question 325

325. Defined as S = E x H (where E represents the electric field vector and H the magnetic field’s auxiliary field vector), which English physicist gives his name to the vector that represents the directional energy transfer per unit area per unit time of an electromagnetic field?

Answer 325

325. John Henry Poynting

Question 326

326. The main industrial procedure for the production of ammonia is known as the Haber-____ process. The German scientist in question was awarded the 1931 Nobel chemistry prize for his development of high pressure methods.

Answer 326

326. Carl Bosch

Question 327

327. Currently one with the highest atomic number (118) and largest atomic mass, which synthetic radioactive element was formally named in November 2016 after a Russian-Armenian nuclear physicist who is a pioneer in superheavy chemical elements?

Answer 327

327. Oganesson (Yuri Oganessian)

Question 328

328. Living during the late Paleocene and Eocene epochs of the Cenozoic era, which genus of large flightless bird takes its name from the first name of the 19th-century French physicist who discovered their first fossils in 1855? He is also credited with inventing the lead-acid battery four years later. (I will accept either his first/ given name or family/ surname).

Answer 328

328. Gaston Plante (the Gastornis)

Question 329

329. Named after an English lawyer and amateur meteorologist who described it in 1735, what two-word term describes a model of Earth’s atmospheric circulation which accounted for trade winds and jet streams? It is driven by the uneven distribution of solar heating across the globe.

Answer 329

329. Hadley Cells

Question 330

330. Jointly awarded the 1908 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Paul Ehrlich, which Russian-born microbiologist and physician is credited with establishing the concept of cell-mediated immunity (he introduced the concept of phagocytosis in the 1880s), while Ehrlich pioneered that of humoral immunity (i.e. with antibodies)?

Answer 330

330. Elie Metchnikoff

Question 331

331. From 145 million years ago (mya) to 66 mya, which geologic period that followed the Jurassic was the last of the three periods of the Mesozoic Era? Its name derives from the Latin for ‘chalk’.

Answer 331

331. Cretaceous

Question 332

332. First introduced in 1927, with which scientist and Nobel laureate would you primarily associate the equation shown here?

Answer 332

332. Werner Heisenberg (Uncertainty Principle)

Question 333

333. In atomic physics, which 21st-century French physicist gives his name to the spontaneous process in wich an atom with an electron vacancy in its innermost (K) shell readjusts itself to a stable state with the emission of one or more electrons rather than radiating an X-ray photon? This effect was actually observed and published by Lise Meitner in 1922, a year earlier than this eponymous scientist.

Answer 333

333. Pierre Victor Auger (Auger effect)

Question 334

334. With the chemical formula C10H8, which organic compound is the simplest polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon? It is best known as the traditional ingredient of mothballs.

Answer 334

334. Naphthalene

Question 335

335. Vital in attempts to explain the dominance of matter over antimatter in the present universe and winning its discovers (Val Fitch and James Cronin) the 1980 Nobel physics award, for what does the letter P stand in the concept of CP violation? It refers to a violation of CP symmetry, which states that the laws of physics should be the same if a particle is interchanged with its antiparticle while its spatial coordinates are inverted.

Answer 335

335. Parity

Question 336

336. Known from a single specimen collected in 1858 in New Jersey, which ornithischian dinosaur that roamed North America during the Late Cretaceous has a name that means ‘bulky lizard’? It is characterized by the flat duck-bill appearance of the bones in their snouts.

Answer 336

336. Hadrosaur

Question 337

337. Named after the Baltic-German physicist who discovered it in 1821, what term in thermoelectricity refers to the production of an electromotive force (EMF) and consequently an electric current in a loop of material consisting of at least two dissimilar conductors when two junctions are maintained at different temperatures?

Answer 337

337. Seebeck effect

Question 338

338. Which term, from the Latin meaning ‘bran’, denotes a heterocyclic organic compound consisting of a five-membered aromatic ring with four carbon atoms and one oxygen? Synthesized by the Feist-Benary and Paal-Knorr pathways, it is volatile, flammable and carcinogenic at high concentrations.

Answer 338

338. Furan

Question 339

339. Coined by the English chemists John Wade and Richard William Merriman, which term (from the Greek meaning ‘no change on boiling’) refers to a mixture of liquids that has a constant boiling point and thus cannot be separated by simple distillation? An example is a mixture of 68% nitric acid and 32% water with a boiling point of 120.4 degrees C.

Answer 339

339. Azeotrope

Question 340

340. Conducted in the summer of 1774 by a team under Nevil Maskelyne (the Astronomer Royal), the Schiehallion experiment (named after the Scottish mountain which provided the location) was an attempt primarily to determine what natural value/ quantity?

Answer 340

340. Mass of the Earth

Question 341

341. Meaning ‘ditch’ or ‘trench’, which German term denotes in geology a depressed block of the earth’s crust bordered by parallel faults, and often occur side-by-side with raised blocks known as horsts? Examples can be seen in the East African Rift Valley, the Death Valley and the Rhine Valley.

Answer 341

341. Graben

Question 342

342. Born 1938 in Chicago, which American evolutionary theorist and biologist’s serial endosymbiotic theory of eukaryotic cell development revolutionized the modern concept of how life arose on Earth? She was also the co-developer of the Gaia Hypothesis with James Lovelock, and the first wife of the astronomer Carl Sagan.

Answer 342

342. Lynn Margulis

Question 343

343. Derived from Ancient Greek for ‘visible life’ and beginning 541 million years ago with the Cambrian period, which is the current eon in the geologic time scale? It was preceded by the Hadean, Archean and Proterozoic – now collectively known as the Pre-Cambrian.

Answer 343

343. Phanerozoic

Question 344

344. Discovered in cosmic rays in 1947, which specific hadronic subatomic particle is characterized by the binding of a strange quark (or anti-quark) with either an up or down anti-quark (or quark)? They were essential in establishing the foundations of the Standard Model of particle physics and our understanding of the fundamental conservation laws.

Answer 344

344. K-mesons/ Kaons

Question 345

345. Studied extensively by the 7th-century Indian mathematician and astronomer Brahmagupta and later by Pierre de Fermat, the Diophantine equation of the form x2 – ny2 = 1 (where n is a given positive nonsquare integer) is named after which 17th-century English mathematician who also served as Oliver Cromwell’s political agent in Europe?

Answer 345

345. John Pell

Question 346

346. Born in 1900, which Ukrainian-American geneticist and evolutionary biologist is best known for his 1937 magnum opus ‘Genetics and the Origin of Species’? It refuted the commonly-held view that natural selection produced something close to the best of all possible worlds.

Answer 346

346. Theodosius Dobzhansky

Question 347

347. Coined by the American zoologist Robert T. Paine in 1969, which two-word term (with architectural reference) in ecology denotes a species that has a disproportionately large effect on the communities in which it occurs? It helps to maintain the community’s biodiversity either by controlling the population of other species (e.g. the apex predators) or by providing critical resources.

Answer 347

347. Keystone species

Question 348

348. Its name coined by the Nobel chemistry laureate Emil Fischer in 1875, which inorganic compound with the formula N2H4 is produced using the Olin Raschig process? Highly toxic and unstable, it is mainly used as a foaming agent as well as a propellant in rocket fuels and onboard space vehicles.

Answer 348

348. Hydrazine

Question 349

349. The author of four New York Times bestsellers including ‘Physics of the Impossible’ (2008) and ‘Physics of the Future’ (2011), which American theoretical physicist is best known for his work in popularizing science and technology through various media including books, television and radio?

Answer 349

349. Michio Kaku

Question 350

350. Including over 100 detailed colour illustrations of animals and sea creatures, ‘Art Forms of Nature’ is a book of lithographic prints by which German zoologist and evolutionist? A strong proponent of Darwinism, he also mapped a genealogical tree relating all life-forms, and coined terms in biology such as ‘phylogeny’ and ‘ecology’.

Answer 350

350. Ernst Haeckel

Question 351

351. One of the most widely-used, after which Russian climatologist is this climate classification system named? It is divided into five main groups, including tropical, continental and polar/alpine.

Answer 351

351. Wladimir Koppen

Question 352

352. First discussed in the 1950s in letters from John Forbe Nash Jr. to the National Security Agency and from Kurt Godel to John von Neumann, the ‘P vs NP’ problem is a major unsolved problem in computer science that asks whether every problem that can be quickly verified can also be solved quickly. For what does the letter ‘P’ in this problem stand?

Answer 352

352. Polynomial

Question 353

353. In classical mechanics, which term denotes the integral of a force (F) over the time interval (t) for which it acts? Symbolized by J, its derived-SI unit is the newton second.

Answer 353

353. Impulse

Question 354

354. In geometry, the formula that derives the area of a triangle when the lengths of all three sides are known is named after which ancient mathematician and engineer who lived from around 10-70 AD? His known works include ‘Pneumatica’, ‘Automata’ and ‘Belopoeica’ – the latter a treatise on war machines.

Answer 354

354. Hero/ Heron of Alexandria

Question 355

355. Foreshadowing the development of atomic weapons by almost half a century, H.G. Wells’ 1914 novel ‘The World Set Free’ was largely inspired by the works of Ernest Rutherford, William Ramsay and which other English radiochemist who demonstrated (with Rutherford) that radioactivity is due to the transmutation of elements? He received the Nobel Chemistry Prize in 1921.

Answer 355

355. Frederick Soddy

Question 356

356. The 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to the American Kary Mullis for his invention of which now widely used scientific method? The individual steps in the procedure include denaturation, annealing and extension.

Answer 356

356. PCR (Polymerase chain reaction)

Question 357

357. Named after the two American molecular biologists who conducted it in 1958, which seminal experiment supported Watson and Crick’s hypothesis that DNA replication was semiconservative, ie when the double-stranded DNA helix is replicated, each of the two new double-stranded DNA helices consisted of one strand from the original helix and one newly synthesized?

Answer 357

357. Meselson-Stahl experiment

Question 358

358. Named after the two crystallographers that discovered it, what name is given to the angle of attack (usually around 107 degrees) of a nucleophile on a trigonal unsaturated carbon in a molecule such as a ketone, aldehyde or ester?

Answer 358

358. Burgi-Dunitz angle

Question 359

359. From the Greek for ‘binding body’, what term denotes a type of junctional complex - localized spot-like adhesions on the lateral sides of plasma membranes - that are specialized for cell-to-cell adhesion?

Answer 359

359. Desmosome

Question 360

360. Named after a US statistician and an Italian mathematician who developed them independently, what pair of first-order nonlinear differential equations are frequently used to describe the dynamics of biological systems in which two species interact, one as a predator and the other as prey?

Answer 360

360. Lotka-Volterra Equations

Question 361

361. The chemical formula of what is shown? It was developed in 1938 and named in honor of its discovers (including Otto Ambros and Gerhard Schrader).

Answer 361

361. Sarin (Schrader, Ambros, Ritter, von der Linde)

Question 362

362. Born 1659, which German chemist, physician and philosopher’s work on phlogiston theory were widely accepted as an explanation for chemical processes until Lavoisier demonstrated the role of oxygen in combustion in the late 18th century?

Answer 362

362. Georg Ernst Stahl

Question 363

363. Relating the change in the equilibrium constant of a chemical reaction to the change in temperature given the standard enthalpy change, which Dutch chemist gives his name to this equation, proposed in 1884 in his book ‘Studies in Dynamic Chemistry’?

Answer 363

363. Jacobus Henricus van ‘t Hoff

Question 364

364. During the expedition of the Fram, Fridtjof Nansen had observed that icebergs tend to drift not in the direction of the prevailing wind but at an angle of 20°-40° to the right. Which Swedish oceanographer investigated this phenomenon and gave his name to concept of a wind-driven net transport of the surface layer of a fluid that, due to the Coriolis effect, occurs at 90° to the direction of the surface wind?

Answer 364

364. Vagn Walfrid Ekman

Question 365

365. Outlined in his 1930 book ‘The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection’, the eponynous principle explaining why the sex ratio of most species that produce offspring through sexual reproduction is approximately 1:1 (between males and females) is named after which British statistician and geneticist – one of the three founders of population genetics alongside JBS Haldane and Sewall Wright?

Answer 365

365. Ronald Fisher

Question 366

366. Named after two Soviet physicists who developed it in 1937, which formula is used to calculate the amount of Cherenkov radiation emitted on a given frequency as a charged particle moves through a medium at superluminal velocity? The two men were awarded the Nobel physics prize (with Cherenkov) in 1958.

Answer 366

366. Frank-Tamm Formula

Question 367

367. The Mohorovičić discontinuity (point A) - the boundary between the Earth’s crust and the mantle, is well known. Which German-American seismologist gives his name to the discontinuity at point B, the boundary between the lower mantle and outer core?

Answer 367

367. Beno Gutenberg

Question 368

368. Born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1931, which influential American archeologist of the late 20th century initiated in the 1960s what came to be known as ‘New Archeology’ or ‘Processural Archeology’? He applied the new methodology in an influential study of Mousterian artifacts and later extended it to a study of the hunting activities of the Nunamiut people.

Answer 368

368. Lewis Binford

Question 369

369. Which American physicist and Nobel laureate gives his name to the difference in energy between two energy levels 2S1/2 and 2P1/2 of the hydrogen atom which was not predicted by the Dirac equation? It is a result of interactions between vacuum energy fluctuations and the hydrogen electron in these different orbitals.

Answer 369

369. William Lamb (Lamb Shift)

Question 370

370. In physiologiy, which Danish scientist gives his name to the phenomenon where oxygen’s binding affinity is inversely related to both acidity and carbon dioxide concentration? In an acidic medium, the oxygen-dissociation curve is shifted to the right.

Answer 370

370. Christian Bohr (the Bohr effect)

Question 371

371. Appearing as eosinophilic cytoplasmic inclusions, the abnormal aggregates of protein that develop inside nerve cells, contributing to its eponymous dementia as well as Parkinson’s disease, are named after which German-born American neurologist who published his findings in 1912?

Answer 371

371. Frederic Henry Lewis – Lewis bodies

Question 372

372. Which American physicist was awarded the 1995 Nobel physics prize, almost forty years after he had performed the experiment which led to the detection of the neutrino (whose existence was postulated by Pauli in 1930)? His co-discover Clyde Cowan had died in 1974 and thus did not receive the Nobel.

Answer 372

372. Frederick Reines

Question 373

373. Shown here with Albert Einstein, which French physicist gives his name to the eponymous equation that governs mathematical modeling of the dynamics of molecular systems? Noted for his work involving ultrasonic submarine detection, he was held under house arrest by the Vichy government for most of WWII for his anti-fascist views.

Answer 373

373. Paul Langevin

Question 374

374. Born 1853 in Riga, which Nobel laureate gives his name to the industrial chemical process shown in this diagram?

Answer 374

374. Wilhelm Ostwald

Question 375

375. In geometry, what term is given to the figure generated by taking the graph y equals 1 over x and rotating it in 3 dimensions around the x-axis? There are two acceptable two-word terms, once with a Biblical reference and the other after the Italian mathematician who studied it in the 17th century.

Answer 375

375. Gabriel’s Horn or Torricelli’s Trumpet

Question 376

377. In probability theory, which Russian mathematician gives his name to a stochastic model describing a sequence of possible events in which the probability of each event depends only on the state attained in the previous event?

Answer 376

377. Markov chain

Question 377

378. Published in 1951, the influential book on animal behavior ‘The Study of Instinct’ was the work of which Dutch ornithologist? Regarded as one of the founders of modern ethology, he shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz.

Answer 377

378. Nikolaas Tinbergen

Question 378

379. First published in 1788, ‘Theory of the Earth’ is now considered the magnum opus of which Edinburgh-born geologist and naturalist? He was a major proponent of the theory of uniformitarianism (which explains the features of the Earth’s crust by means of natural processes over geologic time), in contrast to the then-popular concept of catastrophism.

Answer 378

379. James Hutton

Question 379

380. Also known as plasma oscillations, which American Nobel chemistry laureate gives his name to the organized motion of electrons or ions in a plasma as a result of Coulomb forces? He introduced the term ‘plasma’ in the 1920s while investigating electric discharges.

Answer 379

380. Irving Langmuir

Question 380

381. Consisting primarily of plagioclase feldspar and pyroxene and named after a hamlet in Tuscany, which coarse-grained rock is considered the intrusive (plutonic) equivalent of basalt and makes up much of the Earth’s oceanic crust?

Answer 380

381. Gabbro

Question 381

382. Named after the two US physicists who performed it in the 1920s, which milestone experiment in quantum mechanics confirmed the hypothesis advanced by Louis de Broglie of wave-particle duality?

Answer 381

382. Davission-Germer

Question 382

383. First identified as the ‘tears of wine’ effect in the 1850s, which Italian physicist gives his name to the effect which takes place when there is a gradient of surface tension at the interface between two phases – in most situations, a liquid-gas interface?

Answer 382

383. Carlo Marangoni

Question 383

384. Coined by the German zoologist Ernst Haeckel in his 1872 work ‘Biology of Calcareous Sponges’, what term in embryology refers to the phase early in the development of most animals, during which the single-layered blastula is reorganized into a multilayered structure with the ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm?

Answer 383

384. Gastrulation

Question 384

385. Which Polish mathematician born in 1882 gives his name to this construct - a fractal with the overall shape of an equilateral triangle, subdivided recursively into smaller equilateral triangles?

Answer 384

385. Waclaw Sierpinski

Question 385

386. Named after a French engineer and physicist born 1788, what set of equations describe various properties of light at the interface between media with different indexes of refraction?

Answer 385

386. Fresnel equations

Question 386

387. Which Greek letter is used in measure theory to denote an algebra on which the Borel measure is defined? It also represents the Pauli matrices in quantum mechanics.

Answer 386

387. Sigma

Question 387

388. Its name perhaps deriving from Etruscan for ‘makeweight’, which 8-letter word refers to the part of a common logarithm after the decimal point, i.e. the fractional part?

Answer 387

388. Mantissa

Question 388

389. Deriving from Latin for ‘cut-off’, which 8-letter term denotes the perpendicular distance of a point from the vertical axis, and can also be used to refer to the x-axis (horizontal axis) of a two-dimensional graph?

Answer 388

389. Abscissa

Question 389

390. This molecule consists of N-acetyl-glucos-amine monomers linked by beta 1,4 glycosidic bonds, and is responsible for the hard exoskeletons of arthropods.

Answer 389

390. Chitin

Question 390

391. Covered by chitin, what is the name of the feeding structure found in molluscs, which predatory cones have modified into a poisonous harpoon? In most molluscs, however, this structure functions as a tongue-like scraper.

Answer 390

391. Radula

Question 391

392. These diagrams, named after an Indian scientist, help visualize dihedral angles of amino acid residues in protein structure. They are also often called ψ-φ (psi-phi) plots.

Answer 391

392. Ramachandran plot

Question 392

393. In thermodynamics, what name is given to a process in which no heat is gained or lost by the system, i.e. all the change in internal energy is in the form of work done?

Answer 392

393. Adiabatic

Question 393

394. Born 1934 in New Zealand, the biochemist Allan Wilson is best known for his work on which molecular anthropological hypothesis? Its two-word name popularized in a 1987 ‘Science’ article, it refers to the most recent woman from whom all living humans descend in an unbroken line through their mothers.

Answer 393

394. Mitochondrial Eve

Question 394

395. The 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for the ‘development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light’ to Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, William Daniel Phillips and which other individual - the first person appointed to the U.S. Cabinet after having won a Nobel Prize?

Answer 394

395. Steven Chu

Question 395

396. Most commonly described in the situation where the wave function of a charged particle passing around a long solenoid experiences a phase shift, what name is given to the quantum phenomenon in which a particle is affected by electomagnetic fields even when traveling through a region of space in which both electric and magnetic field are zero? It takes its name after the two theoretical physicists (one American and one Israeli) who published their analysis in 1959.

Answer 395

396. Aharonov-Bohm effect

Question 396

397. Born in Berlin in 1896, which German physical chemist gives his name to the rule (or criterion) which states that a cyclic compound is aromatic if it has 4n + 2 π electrons, for non-negative integer n?

Answer 396

397. Erich Huckel

Question 397

398. Taken from the 2015 film ‘Jurassic World’, this iconic scene features the feeding-time of this large marine reptile that takes its name from WHICH MAJOR EUROPEAN RIVER?

Answer 397

398. Meuse (the Mosasaur)

Question 398

399. Born in Ontario in 1887, which Canadian geologist gives his name to the series depicting how different minerals crystallize under varying pressures and temperatures?

Answer 398

399. Norman L. Bowen (Bowen series)

Question 399

400. ‘The Concept of a Riemann Surface’ (1913), ‘Space, Time, Matter’ (1918) and ‘Group Theory and Quantum Mechanics’ (1928) were noted works by which German-American who served as a vital link between pure mathematics and theoretical physics, and was one of the first to conceive of combining general relativity with the laws of electromagnetism?

Answer 399

400. Hermann Weyl

Question 400

401. Born 1936 in Cairo, which British evolutionary biologist gives his name to the rule concerning kin selection and altruism - one that favours the reproductive success of an organism’s relatives, even at a cost to the organism’s own survival and reproduction?

Answer 400

401. WD Hamilton

Question 401

402. In molecular biology, what term is given to the family of cytoskeletal motor proteins that move along cellular microtubules and are vital in mitosis as well as the movement of cilia and flagella? They engage in retrograde transport (ie move towards the minus-end of microtubules) in contrast to kinesins, which are involved in anterograde transport.

Answer 401

402. Dyneins

Question 402

403. Its genus name meaning ‘two-crested lizard’, which theropod dinosaur that lived in North America during the Early Jurassic was featured in the novel ‘Jurassic Park’ and its movie adaptation, wherein it was given the fictional abilities to spit venom and expand a cowl on its neck? It was acknowledged as the only serious departure from scientific veracity in the movie’s making-of book.

Answer 402

403. Dilophosaurus

Question 403

404. Its existence first proposed in 1970 by the computational chemist Eiji Osawa, the 1996 Nobel chemistry prize was awarded to Harold Kroto, Robert Curl and Richard Smalley for their discovery of what?

Answer 403

404. Fullerene

Question 404

405. Involving the splitting of a lump of matter as it enters the ergosphere, the process whereby energy can be extracted from a rotating black hole is named after which English mathematical physicist? He was portrayed by Christian McKay in the 2014 movie ‘The Theory of Everything’.

Answer 404

405. Roger Penrose

Question 405

406. Written around 1162 and translating as ‘Generalities’, which medical encyclopedia by the Muslim Andalusian philosopher Averroes (Ibn Rushd) covered topics as diverse as anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology and therapeutics? The Latin translation became used in Europe as a textbook for centuries.

Answer 405

406. ‘Colliget’/ ‘Kulliyat’

Question 406

407. Named after an two mathematicians (one Italian-American and one Chinese-American), what name given to the particular type of manifold in algebraic geometry that possesses certain properties (such as Ricci flatness) which gives it applications in theoretical physics (e.g. in superstring theory where the extra spacetime dimensions are conjectured to take the form of such 6-dimensional manifolds)?

Answer 406

407. Calabi-Yau manifold

Question 407

408. From the Ancient Greek for ‘sea-fish’, which term denotes a family of venomous snakes endemic to tropical and subtropical regions characterized by short fangs fixed in the front of the upper jaw for for venom injection? Examples include the cobra, mamba and sea snake.

Answer 407

408. Elapids

Question 408

409. Challenging the influential James-Lange theory of the time, which Harvard physiologist and his student Philip Bard gave their names to the theory that the thalamic region of the brain plays a major role in the feeling and expression of emotions? He coined the term ‘fight or flight’ and popularized his theories in his book ‘The Wisdom of the Body’ (1932).

Answer 408

409. Walter Bradford Cannon

Question 409

410. Analogous to Moore’s law but applied to magnetic disk storage density, which Seagate senior executive gives his name to a ‘law’ that assumes that it doubles every thirteen months? However by 2014 the observed rate had fallen well short of forecast according to this law.

Answer 409

410. Mark Kryder

Question 410

411. Made of suberin and sometimes lignin, which two-word term denotes a band of cell wall material which acts as a diffusion barrier that directs water and solutes from the soil to the water-conducting tissues? Its name derives from a 19th-century German botanist who specialized in the study of aquatic plants.

Answer 410

411. Casparian strip

Question 411

412. Born 1937 in Moscow, which Russian-American particle physicist introduced, independently of Murray Gell-Mann, the quark model (although he named it ‘aces’)? They were unsuccessfully nominated by Richard Feynman for the 1977 Nobel physics prize, although Gell-Mann had won it in 1969 for his work on elementary particles.

Answer 411

412. George Zweig

Question 412

413. Formed by the rapid cooling (quenching) of the austenite form of iron, which very hard form of steel crystalline structure is named after a German metallurgist who also gives his name to a type of diffusionless phase transition in the solid state?

Answer 412

413. Martensite/ Martensitic transformation (Adolf Martens)

Question 413

414. Forming a fundamental part of finite group theory, which Norwegian mathematician published his eponymous theorems in 1872 that gave detailed information about the number of subgroups of fixed order that a given finite group contains? He subsequently spent 8 years of his life editing the mathematical works of his countryman, Niels Henrik Abel.

Answer 413

414. Peter Ludwig Mejdell Sylow

Question 414

415. Born in Hesse in 1829, which German physiologist and physician gives his name to a set of laws that govern the transport of mass through diffusive means?

Answer 414

415. Adolf Fick

Question 415

416. The Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for ‘the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed (induced) to become _________’. The term in question refers to possessing the potential to differentiate into any of the three germ layers - endoderm, mesoderm and ectoderm.

Answer 415

416. Pluripotent