Science & Nature50 randomly selected Science & Nature questions for quizmasters. New random selection made weekly. Next update: Monday 4th December 2023 (Please note: Questions are taken from our database of previous quizzes. Some questions and answers may be outdated.) |
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| 1. | Dame Jane Goodall is considered to be the world's foremost expert on what animal? |
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Chimpanzee | |
| 2. | What is the Latin medical term for your shoulder blade? |
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Scapula | |
| 3. | Beovision is a line of televisions by what company? |
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Bang & Olufsen | |
| 4. | Launched in October 1957, what was the name of the first man-made satellite to orbit the Earth? |
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Sputnik 1 | |
| 5. | What is the chemical symbol for Arsenic? |
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As (Ar is the symbol for Argon) | |
| 6. | What 'A' is a more common name for the hormone epinephrine? |
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Adrenaline | |
| 7. | Replacing old analogue systems like PAL, NTSC and SECAM, DVB is one of several open standards being adopted for modern television around the world. What does DVB stand for? |
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Digital Video Broadcasting | |
| 8. | What is the only mammal naturally capable of true and sustained flight? |
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Bat | |
| 9. | Riboflavin, Niacin, and Folic Acid are all types of what? |
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Vitamin (B2, B3 and B9) | |
| 10. | What set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals get their name from the Greek word for "unquenchable"? |
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Asbestos (Greek: άσβεστος) | |
| 11. | Myopathy is a term used to describe any abnormality or disease affecting what part of the body? |
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Muscle / Muscle tissue | |
| 12. | A satellite of Jupiter, what is the largest and most massive of the Solar System's moons? |
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Ganymede | |
| 13. | What naturally occurring family of silicate minerals get their name from the Ancient Greek for "inextinguishable"? |
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Asbestos (Ancient Greek: ἄσβεστος) | |
| 14. | A much faster and more reliable alternative to mechanical hard disk drives, what do the initials SSD stand for? |
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Solid-state drive/disk | |
| 15. | California ebony, Texas brown, Costa Rican red, Mexican pink, and Peruvian pinktoe are all types of what? |
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Spider (Tarantula) | |
| 16. | What 'M' describes the curve on the surface of a liquid? |
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Meniscus | |
| 17. | To the nearest whole number, what percentage of the Earth's atmosphere is nitrogen? |
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78 (78.084%) | |
| 18. | In human anatomy, where are the metatarsals? |
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Feet | |
| 19. | In the International System of Units (SI), what single unit of measurement is equal to 1 billion kilobytes? |
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Terabyte | |
| 20. | What is the binary number 11111111 in decimal? |
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255 | |
| 21. | What 'F' is used to describe the large, divided leaves of ferns and other similar plants? |
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Fronds | |
| 22. | What alkaline earth metal has the atomic number 12 in the periodic table? |
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Magnesium | |
| 23. | What 'A' describes any invertebrate with a segmented body, jointed limbs, and usually a chitinous shell; including insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and myriapods? |
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Arthropod | |
| 24. | What is the collective noun for a group of crows? |
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Murder / Horde | |
| 25. | What 'J' describes this tree, native to Western Australia, with flowers that are used to make honey, and long, straight trunks that provide a deep rich reddish-brown, termite-resistant wood with an attractive grain? |
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Jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata, historically known as Swan River mahogany) | |
| 26. | What 'D' can describe: a device attached to the stern of a boat to slow it down in a storm; a parachute deployed to slow down a rapidly moving object; or a pilot parachute to deploy a larger parachute? |
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Drogue | |
| 27. | What four-letter word is the common name for the soleus muscle? |
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Calf | |
| 28. | What boy's name is also the SI derived unit of electrical inductance? |
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Henry | |
| 29. | How many Troy ounces are there in a Troy pound? |
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12 | |
| 30. | Invented at IBM by Alan Shugart in 1967, the first floppy drives introduced in 1971 used a disk that was how many inches in diameter? |
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8 (evolving into the 5.25-inch disk that was used on the first IBM Personal Computer in August 1981) | |
| 31. | What do Chiropterans have that most other mammals don't? |
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Wings (i.e. bats) | |
| 32. | What creatures live in a formicary? |
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Ants | |
| 33. | Containing approximately 75% of the atmosphere's mass, and also where all weather takes place, what name is given to the lowest portion of the Earth's atmosphere? |
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Troposphere | |
| 34. | What vitamin is produced by the action of ultraviolet light on the skin? |
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D (D3 - cholecalciferol) | |
| 35. | A member of the horse family, what animal is divided into three species: the plains, the Grévy's and the mountain? |
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Zebra | |
| 36. | Which element is most commonly added to silver to make sterling silver? |
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Copper | |
| 37. | A gas above -269 °C, at -272.2° C, what chemical element has the lowest freezing point? |
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Helium | |
| 38. | What 'S' describes this breed of dog? |
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Schnauzer | |
| 39. | What animal's name is derived from the Afrikaans for "earth pig"? |
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Aardvark | |
| 40. | The tallest and heaviest of its kind, what species of penguin is this? |
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Emperor | |
| 41. | A family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages, what does the acronym BASIC stand for? |
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Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code | |
| 42. | The United States has 100 nuclear power plants, more than any other country. What European country comes second with 58? |
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France | |
| 43. | Deuterium oxide (2H2O or D2O) is commonly known as what? |
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Heavy water | |
| 44. | From what continent do Guinea Pigs originate? |
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South America | |
| 45. | Native to Africa, what 'S' describes this wild cat? |
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Serval | |
| 46. | What 4-letter word can be spelt using the chemical symbols for lithium, nitrogen, and potassium? |
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Link | |
| 47. | Nepetalactone is the chemical compound that gives what species of plant its characteristic scent? |
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Catnip / Catswort / Catmint (Nepeta cataria) | |
| 48. | Name the only two islands on which orangutans can be found in the wild? |
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Borneo and Sumatra | |
| 49. | What 'C' describes the intelligent personal assistant released by Microsoft for several of its operating systems in 2014? |
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Cortana | |
| 50. | What 'S' is used to describe a young domestic pigeon? |
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Squab | |
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