Saturday 2 February 2013

History Month Quiz

To help your LBGT History Month celebrations go with a swing here’s a quiz for you to try out. All questions are science based. Answers tomorrow.

1)  Which two asteroids are named after a Vulcan character and an Asian-American actor from the original “Star Trek” series?

2)  Sir Francis Bacon – philosopher, statesman and pioneering experimental scientist – died as a result of what?
a)      From a nosebleed received when he was hit in the face by a barmaid,
b)      From a chill he caught after stuffing a dead chicken with snow,
c)      By decapitation by riding into an overhanging tree branch while chasing a thunderstorm.

3)   For which one of the following did Leonardo da Vinci NOT draw a design?
            a) helicopter
            b) armoured vehicle
            c) bicycle.

4)  The satellites of the planet Jupiter are all named after the god’s lovers and children. Which is the only one named after his male lover?

5) True or false? Alan Turing used maths to discover how leopards get their spots?

6) Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), a German explorer, gave his name to the Humboldt current. To which part of the Earth’s surface does this name apply?

7) Until recent research identified earlier AIDS victims, Gaetan Dugan was given which medical name, a term given to the first known victim of a disease?          

8) Ada, Countess of Lovelace, was a Victorian computer – someone who did mathematical calculations. Charles Babbage called her his Enchantress of Numbers. Who was her famous pansexual poet father?

9) Which of the following flowers and plants is named after a male lover of the Greek sun god Apllo?
            a) Hyacinth
            b) Peony
            c) Holly

10) When electricity was first discovered in the 19th century it led to speculation that it might revive the dead. Which novel, written by a woman and revised by her bisexual husband, did this idea inspire?

11) What did gay geneticist Dean Hamer controversially claim to have located in human DNA – something which supports the “nature over nurture” side of the origins of homosexuality?

12) Benjamin Banneker has been called the first Afro-American (and probably the first gay American) scientist. In which century was he born?
a)      18th
b)      19th
c)      20th

13) One of Alan Turing’s code-breaking colleagues at Bletchley Park during World War II, Noel Currer-Briggs, went on to become a leading expert in the 1960s into which mysterious artefact?
            a) the Holy Grail
            b) the Shroud of Turin
            c) the Ark of the Covenant.

14) The word “homosexuality” entered the English language in 1892. It was created by a sexologist (researcher into the biological and psychological origins of sexuality and gender) in which country?
            a) Germany
            b) Australia
            c) India

15) The astrological symbols for male and female - ♂ ♀ - were first used to signify gender in plants in 1756. They are often seen doubled and linked to create same-sex symbols. But from which planets were these gender symbols originally attributed?

16) The scientific names of many animals have come from people. Can you match up the lgbt people listed here, or something with which they are associated, to the scientific name they inspired?
            NAMES :
A) Freddie Mercury
            B) Leonardo da Vinci
            C) Bram Stoker
            D) Sheldon Cooper of “The Big Bang Theory”
            E) Sappho

            ANIMALS :
a)      Draculoides, a species of Australian arachnid
b)      Heliconius sapho, a butterfly
c)      Davincia, a genus of wasps
d)      Euglossa bazinga, a species of bee
e)      Cirolana mercuryi, a marine crustacean

17) The colours of the rainbow flag have become synonymous with the lgbt community. Even though the rainbow has been a familiar sight since time began it wasn’t until Sir Isaac Newton studied light that actual colours were attributed to it. Newton originally suggested only 5 colours of the rainbow. Which 5?

18) Whilst living in Turkey in the 1700s Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu (at one time romantically linked to her husband’s sister) saw how the Turks inoculated against a particular disease. She brought the process back to England. Thanks to inoculation, and later vaccination, this disease was declared eradicated in 1979 by WHO. Which disease was it?
            a) chicken pox
            b) cowpox
            c) smallpox
 
19) Emperor Elagabalus took his name from a large meteorite which he worshipped as the sun god El-Gabal. Over which empire did this meteorite-worshipping emperor rule?

20) True or false? Leonardo da Vinci wrote all the notes on his technical, scientific and anatomical drawing in reverse in Latin.

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