Science & Nature50 randomly selected Science & Nature questions for quizmasters. New random selection made weekly. Next update: Monday 20th April 2026 (Please note: Questions are taken from our database of previous quizzes. Some questions and answers may be outdated.) |
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| 1. | Common, Arctic and Sooty are varieties of what type of bird? |
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Tern | |
| 2. | What name is given to a mesh cage used to protect electrical equipment from external static and electromagnetic fields? |
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Faraday cage/shield (named after English scientist Michael Faraday, who first constructed one in 1836) | |
| 3. | A member of the crow family, what type of bird is this? |
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Magpie | |
| 4. | Also known as the forest giraffe or zebra giraffe, what 'O' describes this animal, native to the Congo in Central Africa? |
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Okapi | |
| 5. | What chemical element has the atomic number 5? |
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Boron | |
| 6. | With implications for time travel, in physics, what is the more common term for an Einstein-Rosen bridge? |
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Wormhole | |
| 7. | After Pluto, what is the second-largest known dwarf planet in our solar system? |
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Eris | |
| 8. | Native to Australia, what 'R' describes this extremely venomous spider? |
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Redback | |
| 9. | What name is given to an alloy of gold and, most commonly, either nickel, silver, or palladium? |
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White gold | |
| 10. | What is the name of the short-period comet visible to the naked eye from Earth every 75-76 years? |
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Halley's Comet | |
| 11. | Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra are the five known moons of what? |
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Pluto | |
| 12. | What nationality was chemist Alfred Nobel? |
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Swedish | |
| 13. | From what type of tree is nearly all the world's natural cork obtained? |
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Oak (Cork Oak - Quercus suber) | |
| 14. | What 'C' is the company founded by Bill Gates in 1989 to collect and license digital archives? |
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Corbis | |
| 15. | In mathematics, what is the value of 5 factorial? |
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120 (5×4×3×2×1) | |
| 16. | What is the largest moon of Saturn and the second-largest moon in the Solar System, after Jupiter's Ganymede? |
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Titan | |
| 17. | Who performed three orbits of the Earth in the Friendship 7 spacecraft on 20th February 1962? |
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John Glenn | |
| 18. | Officially called Pterois, what is the more common name for this genus of venomous marine fish? |
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Lionfish | |
| 19. | In humans, female cells typically contain how many X chromosomes? |
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2 | |
| 20. | What was the name of the first Space Station to be launched by the USA, in orbit between 1973 and 1979? |
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Skylab | |
| 21. | In mathematics, the integer below the line of a fraction is called the denominator. What is the integer above the line called? |
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Numerator | |
| 22. | What name is given to animals that neither possess nor develop a backbone? |
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Invertebrates | |
| 23. | What system of alternative medicine was created in 1796 by Samuel Hahnemann, based on his doctrine of like cures like, a claim that a substance that causes the symptoms of a disease in healthy people would cure similar symptoms in sick people? |
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Homeopathy | |
| 24. | Which element has the symbol Fe? |
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Iron (from Latin: ferrum) | |
| 25. | How many nanoseconds are there in 1 millisecond? |
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1 million ((1 second = 1 billion nanoseconds) / 1000 milliseconds) | |
| 26. | What colour are Edelweiss flowers? |
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White (edel means "noble" and weiß means "white") | |
| 27. | In an electrical circuit diagram, what device is represented by either of these symbols? |
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Resistor | |
| 28. | The tallest and heaviest of its kind, what species of penguin is this? |
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Emperor | |
| 29. | How many canine teeth does an adult human have? |
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4 | |
| 30. | Polysomnography is the scientific study of what? |
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Sleep | |
| 31. | What is removed from the body during a phlebotomy? |
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Blood (from the Greek words phlebo-, meaning "pertaining to a blood vessel", and -tomy, meaning "to make an incision") | |
| 32. | What is the tenth-most-massive known body directly orbiting the Sun in our solar system? |
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Pluto (Erin is ninth, 27% more massive than Pluto, though Pluto is slightly larger by volume) | |
| 33. | The symbol for what chemical element is derived from the Neo-Latin word kalium? |
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Potassium (K) | |
| 34. | In electronics, how many terminals does a transistor have? |
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Three | |
| 35. | What name is given to a parallelogram with four equal sides and no right angles? |
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Rhombus (Every rhombus is a parallelogram and a kite. A rhombus with right angles is a square.) | |
| 36. | What 'P' describes an acute, viral, infectious disease sometimes called infantile paralysis? |
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Poliomyelitis / Polio (Poliovirus) | |
| 37. | If you have XY sex chromosomes, are you male or female? |
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Male | |
| 38. | In forensic science, what does the 'F' in AFIS stand for? |
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Fingerprint (Automated Fingerprint Identification System) | |
| 39. | In reference to internet access, what does DSL stand for? |
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Digital Subscriber Line (or Loop) | |
| 40. | What organ is surgically removed in a cholecystectomy? |
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Gallbladder | |
| 41. | What 'T' is the formation of a blood clot inside a blood vessel, obstructing the flow of blood through the circulatory system? |
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Thrombosis | |
| 42. | Named after a French physicist, what 'C' is the fundamental unit of electric charge? |
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Coulomb | |
| 43. | With 128 recognised species, what 'G' describes this genus of flowering plant? |
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Gardenia | |
| 44. | What 'G' is a soft, silvery metal that melts at 30°C (86°F)? |
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Gallium | |
| 45. | What 'D' is the generic name of the medicine first marketed as Valium? |
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Diazepam | |
| 46. | If you leave hospital with gossypiboma, what went wrong? |
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Something was accidentally left inside a your body during surgery (from the Latin gossypium (“cotton wool, cotton”) and the suffix -oma, meaning a tumour or growth) | |
| 47. | Which part of a horse consists of a dock and a skirt? |
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Tail | |
| 48. | What 'R' describes any quadrilateral whose four sides all have the same length? |
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Rhombus | |
| 49. | Discovered by Hubble in 1994, what planet in our solar system features the Northern Great Dark Spot? |
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Neptune | |
| 50. | With a lifespan exceeding 200 years, this Arctic-dwelling whale is the longest known living mammal on Earth. What is it called? |
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Bowhead | |
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