IT WAS a year of high-flying anniversaries, and more or less fond farewells. On 17 December 1903 the first spluttering aircraft took off at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and flew for nearly 40 metres. The Wright brothers’ airborne triumph was the beginning of flight as we know it.
A hundred years later, the world’s first supersonic airliner made its last commercial flight. Concorde took its passengers to the “edge of space”, as the PR blurb put it. But the supersonic dream came down to earth in October, somewhat to the relief of people living near airports in London, Paris and New York, who have had to endure the din of its regular flights for more than 30 years.
Fifty years ago scientists in the basement of King’s College London laid the foundation for all the recent genetic advances when they photographed DNA for the first time, with the help of a condom, some sealing wax and a camera full of hydrogen. Earlier this year we bade goodbye to one of the fruits of genetic technology, Dolly the sheep. The ovine superstar died prematurely aged 6 1/2.
It was also the year of the rugby world cup. Several of the teams, including the winners England, had shirts that were scientifically designed to hug bodies tightly, making it more difficult to tackle players by grabbing a handful of shirt. Unfortunately, the shirts also had the habit of bursting apart during the game. So while half the country could be heard expounding volubly in bars across the land about the finer points of the game, the other half were expressing a similar sporting interest in finer points of recently revealed pectorals.
And finally, it was time to say goodbye to the Galileo probe, which NASA deliberately crashed into Jupiter in September to avoid the risk of contaminating any life on the planet’s moons with aliens from Earth. So far this thoughtful gesture has gone without thanks.
As the year slowly swims into focus, it’s time for our traditional antidote to the round of seasonal parties. There are just 10 questions for the brain cells to grapple with. All the stories appeared in this year’s 91av.
Boozy beginnings
1. Red wine is good for you – even if it is in disappointingly moderate quantities. What new benefit has been reported this year?
a) Chemicals in red wine can kill the herpes virus
b) Coating apples with a red-wine extract stops them going mouldy for up to seven weeks
c) The antioxidants can help you roll back the years – or at least it worked in rats
2. The round of seasonal parties has had its inevitable impact, depleting your tally of brain cells. So what happens when you go back to your normal evening intake of a couple of glasses?
a) Nothing. The binges have a permanent impact
b) The lower intake just kills off the brain cells more slowly
c) New cells grow to replace those lost in the binge
3. The peanuts always sink to the bottom of a bowl of mixed nuts at the office party, leaving larger nuts on the top – indeed, it’s known as the Brazil nut effect. So how do you get the peanuts to rise to the top?
a) Pour in the nuts and shake the container violently
b) Cheat, and break up the Brazil nuts into the size of peanuts
c) There’s nothing to it. Pour the Brazil nuts in first, followed by the peanuts
Mastering nature
4. In the past two decades the US has had a series of bumper harvests. Why?
a) It’s all part of the benefits that the rest of the world will soon see from GM crops
b) It’s entirely the result of better fertiliser use during the growing cycle
c) It’s all down to global warming: warmer temperatures have produced higher yields
5. Back in 1911 Charles Campbell, a Texan doctor, decided the way to rid swamps near San Antonio of malaria was to build some comfortable roosts for mosquito-eating bats in the area. All he had to do was to persuade the bats to leave their traditional roosts. How did he succeed?
a) By playing phonograph cylinders of the Mexico City Police Band
b) By hosing the bats down with water
c) By letting off a series of firecrackers
6. It’s the stuff of Hollywood disaster movies. An asteroid is on a collision course with our planet. What’s the best way for our gallant hero to save Earth?
a) Shoot a nuclear warhead at it and blast it to smithereens
b) Focus sunlight on the asteroid with a mirror and the evaporating gas will make it change course
c) Do nothing. Go back to the party, and wait for the astronomers to find the error in their calculations
Miscellany
7. When was the world’s first airline set up to exploit powered aircraft?
a) 1843 (the Aerial Transit Company)
b) 1910 (the Wright Company)
c) 1919 (Aircraft Transport and Travel)
8. Love, as Dorothy Parker wrote, is like “quicksilver in the hand…Clutch it, and it darts away.” But what does being in love really feel like?
a) Mild intoxication, only the hangover is a lot worse
b) Catching a cold, you run a temperature for a couple of days
c) Eating a bar of chocolate – it gives you a bit of a high
9. The silver-spotted skipper caterpillar fires its dung away from its leafy shelter so that it doesn’t attract predators. How far can it propel its poo? The answers are in excremental progression
a) 30 centimetres
b) Up to 20 times the length of its body
c) The human equivalent of 76 metres – or 12 houses down the street
10. Termites are notorious for chomping their way through entire buildings. So how do researchers plan to put their destructive power to good use? a) Dampwood termites secrete fungicide, which can protect buildings against other threats to timber, such as wet rot b) By persuading them to eat plastic rubbish bags c) Clearing military buffer zones of vegetation
How you scored
The scoring system works on the principle of snakes and ladders. You get 10 points for every right answer, and you lose 10 points for every wrong answer – so any score above zero is an excuse for a modest celebration.
Answers:
1(b) 2(c) 3(a) 4(c) 5(a) 6(b) 7(a) 8(c) 9(c) 10(b)