Science & Nature50 randomly selected Science & Nature questions for quizmasters. New random selection made weekly. Next update: Monday 21st July 2025 (Please note: Questions are taken from our database of previous quizzes. Some questions and answers may be outdated.) |
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| 1. | Former British athlete Zola Budd was born in what country? |
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South Africa | |
| 2. | What 'M' has the chemical formula CH4? |
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Methane / Methyl hydride / Marsh gas | |
| 3. | What 'R' describes this flightless bird native to South America? |
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Rhea | |
| 4. | What 'A' describes the pigmented area on the breast around the nipple? |
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Areola | |
| 5. | What name is given to a non-working male bee, without a stinger, whose primary role is to mate with an unfertilised queen? |
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Drone | |
| 6. | What planet in our Solar System owes its deep blue colour to the absorption of red light by methane gas in its atmosphere? |
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Neptune | |
| 7. | Native to the mountains of southern Europe, what 'L' describes this small tree? |
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Laburnum | |
| 8. | What 'O' describes a process by which molecules of a solvent pass through a semipermeable membrane from a less concentrated solution into a more concentrated one, thus equalizing the concentrations on each side of the membrane? |
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Osmosis | |
| 9. | What 'T' is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human? |
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Turing test (originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1950) | |
| 10. | What 'E' is the medical term for a blockage inside a blood vessel? |
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Embolism | |
| 11. | What number is represented in Morse Code by a dot and four dashes?
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1 | |
| 12. | The essential clotting protein found in blood is called Factor what? |
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8 / VIII | |
| 13. | What 6-letter word can be spelt using the chemical symbols for gold, titanium, and samarium? |
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Autism | |
| 14. | Reed, Marsh, Sedge, and Grasshopper are varieties of what bird? |
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Warbler | |
| 15. | Oncology is the study of what? |
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Cancer | |
| 16. | What famous English scientist was born on Christmas Day in 1642? |
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Sir Isaac Newton | |
| 17. | What skin condition is known medically as pruritus? |
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Itching | |
| 18. | What Toyota car model shares its name with the collective term for the petals of a flower? |
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Corolla (called Corolla Altis in the ASEAN region) | |
| 19. | At more than 11 inches in diameter, what creature has the largest eyes documented in the animal kingdom? |
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Colossal squid | |
| 20. | How many pairs of chromosomes make up the cells of a normal human body? |
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23 | |
| 21. | What name is given to an elementary particle of light? |
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Photon | |
| 22. | Alces alces is the largest extant species in the deer family. What is its common name? |
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Moose / Elk | |
| 23. | Wapiti (Cervus canadensis) are one of the largest species in the deer family. By what name are they more commonly known? |
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Elk | |
| 24. | What is measured by a hygrometer? |
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Humidity | |
| 25. | 4.3 light years from the Sun, what is the name of the nearest star system to Earth's Solar System? |
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Alpha Centauri (Proxima Centauri is the nearest star) | |
| 26. | Comprising four species - European, American, Alaskan, and scale-eye - what type of fish is this? |
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Plaice | |
| 27. | What is the chemical symbol for Arsenic? |
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As (Ar is the symbol for Argon) | |
| 28. | Fulminology is the scientific study of what naturally occurring phenomena? |
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Lightning (from Latin: fulmen, pl. fulmini - lightning) | |
| 29. | Visible throughout the world, what is the name of this constellation? |
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Orion | |
| 30. | Our solar system's sun generates its energy by the nuclear fusion of hydrogen nuclei, thus transforming them into what element? |
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Helium | |
| 31. | Entomophobia is an excessive or unrealistic fear of what? |
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Insects | |
| 32. | TON 618, NGC 4889, OJ 287, and Messier 87 are among the largest what so far discovered in space? |
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Black holes | |
| 33. | What 'M' is the product of the mass and velocity of an object? |
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Momentum | |
| 34. | What nationality was 18th century botanist, physician and zoologist Carl Linnaeus (Carl von Linné)? |
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Swedish | |
| 35. | What 'E' describes the flap in the throat that keeps food from entering the windpipe and into the lungs? |
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Epiglottis | |
| 36. | A lustrous grey metalloid, what chemical element has the symbol Sb, derived from its Latin name stibium? |
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Antimony | |
| 37. | What 'F' describes the tubes leading from the ovaries of female mammals into the uterus? |
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Fallopian tubes (also known as uterine tubes, and salpinges) | |
| 38. | What valuable product can be gained by mining kimberlites or lamproites? |
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Diamond | |
| 39. | If cats are 'feline', what are sheep? |
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Ovine | |
| 40. | What is the scientific name for the southern equivalent of the Aurora Borealis? |
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Aurora Australis (Southern lights) | |
| 41. | To the nearest 1 percent, what percentage of air is nitrogen? |
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78 (78.084%) | |
| 42. | What highly contagious disease is a common cause of parotid gland swelling? |
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Mumps | |
| 43. | In Newton's second law, what does the 'a' stand for in the formula F=ma? |
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Acceleration (Force = mass x acceleration) | |
| 44. | Common, Arctic and Sooty are varieties of what type of bird? |
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Tern | |
| 45. | Oology is the study of what? |
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Birds' eggs | |
| 46. | What 'P' describes a measuring device comprising a half or full circle graduated in degrees from 0 to 180 or 360? |
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Protractor | |
| 47. | What name is given to this engine component? |
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Crankshaft | |
| 48. | The world's first synthetic plastic, polyoxybenzylmethylene-glycolanhydride, was patented in 1909 under what name? |
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Bakelite | |
| 49. | What two components make up the stamen, the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower? |
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Filament and Anther | |
| 50. | What 8-letter word can be spelt using the chemical symbols for rhenium, cerium, nitrogen, thallium, and yttrium? |
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Recently | |
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