THE year’s pugilistic high point took place in the lobby of a plush Beverly Hills hotel in September. Bart Sibrel, who believes the Apollo Moon landings were faked, thrust a Bible into Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s face and demanded that he swear the landings were genuine while Sibrel videoed the reply. The 72-year-old lunar explorer replied by punching him in the face.
It was one small punch for mankind, as NASA’s scriptwriters would have put it, and will no doubt liven up the sceptic’s video. Still the joke quickly did the rounds that Aldrin was never in Los Angeles. And the punch was faked.
But the biggest event of the year was the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Most of the world’s leaders went to Johannesburg in August, with the notable exception of George W. Bush, who chose to boycott it.
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The success of the conference can be gauged from the meeting’s very own “carbon legacy fund”. The organisers wanted the conference to be carbon neutral. So they had to find a way to compensate for the 300,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide it would generate – mostly from flying the delegations to South Africa. They decided to pass the hat round to pay for planting enough trees to offset all those flights. The fund’s target was $3 million. The world’s leaders dug deep into their pockets and purses – and came up with $300,000.
But enough of the serious stuff. It’s time to pour yourself a glass of your favourite tipple, throw another light bulb on the coal-effect fire and bring the quiz into focus. Just 10 questions – and all the stories appeared in this year’s New Scientist.
Cuddly animals
1. Betty, the New Caledonian crow, is far from birdbrained. If a tasty morsel is just out of reach, she will bend some wire to make a hook and fish it out – it’s sophisticated toolmaking that only humans can rival. Now Betty lives with Abel. How does he get a hard-to-reach morsel?
a) He uses brute force and tries to peck his way through obstacles such as tree trunks
b) He waits for Betty to reach it, and then he robs her
c) He doesn’t. He reclines on his perch and waits for Betty to bring him his dinner
2. In the scary dinosaur movies, Tyrannosaurus rex charges around the screen at high speed, frightening the life out of everything else on two feet. But how fast could T. rex really run?
a) A zippy 50 kilometres per hour, but only in short bursts
b) It couldn’t even manage a gentle jog, so you’re quite safe
c) It all depended on the temperature – T. rex was sprightly in summer but sluggish in winter
Party time
3. Most of the booze at the office party was barely drinkable. So it’s a pity the all-too-easy-to-quaff red wine ran out quickly. Why did it taste so good?
a) The wide-brimmed Bordeaux glasses it was served in exposed more wine to the air, speeding up the formation of taste-improving esters
b) The shape of the glass meant that your nostrils were physically closer to the wine, enhancing its natural nose
c) The knowledge that the flavonoids in red wine are good for your health
4. Fortunately most of the events at the party are permanently shrouded in the mists of alcohol. What made you drink so much? Choose only one answer
a) It’s my main source of flavonoids
b) It must have been those smart wine glasses that tipped off the waiter whenever my glass was empty
c) My IQ is 150. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it
War and peace
5. All right, avoiding the subject of war completely is impossible. But if the UN weapons inspectors successfully seek out Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction it may yet be averted. What is the secret weapon up Saddam’s sleeve?
a) Mousepox. After all, the Bible records that it felled the Assyrians, leaving 5180 dead (Second Book of Kings, ch 19, v 35)
b) Camelpox… yet another good reason to steer clear of camels
c) Ur… sorry this is classified, come back next year
6. And how will the US military detect a chemical weapons attack?
a) With an electronic nose, originally developed to detect off flavours in beer
b) Troops will carry canaries in cages into battle
c) Trained wasps will sniff out tiny amounts of anything suspicious
…and the rest
7. Insomnia is catching: first you stay awake worrying about the little things, then you get to the point where you start worrying about having sleepless nights. So what’s the best remedy?
a) Think of relaxing images, such as a tinkling waterfall
b) Avoid chocolate
c) Count sheep
8. In 1774 James Watt left Glasgow and moved south to Birmingham to join Matthew Boulton in selling their famous steam engines. But how did the young Watt make his living before he left Scotland?
a) His workshop turned out spirtles – a rod the Scots use to stir porridge
b) He sold an improved whisky still
c) He made cheap flutes and passed them off as the work of a leading Paris instrument maker
9. All the old jokes about mothers-in-law turn out to have some basis in truth. The husband’s mother is a malign influence – or she was in 19th-century Germany. How do the experts explain this?
a) His wife’s sauerkraut was never as good as his mother’s
b) Men never do grow up, he’ll always be a mummy’s boy
c) The mother-in-law does not know who fathered the grandchildren. After all, what were milkmen for?
10. The 6-tonne cast iron pillar in front of the temple of Vishnu in New Delhi (on the right of the picture) is about 1600 years old. So why isn’t it covered with rust?
a) Its high phosphorus content forms a coating that stops rust
b) It’s painted with the world’s earliest water-repellent coating, based on the leaves of the sacred lotus
c) Temple caretakers dry it off every night
How you scored
The scoring system works on the snakes and ladders principle: give yourself 10 points for each correct answer and deduct 10 for every wrong one. The maximum score is 100, but given the number of answers that could have lost you points. Anything above zero is a good excuse to test out all those theories about red wine.
Answers:
1(b). 2(b). 3(a). 4(b) or (c). 5(b). 6(c). 7(a). 8(c). 9(c). 10(a).
