91886 Intermediate Trivia Questions
91886 public questions at this depth. How many can you answer?
In the Michelson–Morley experiment of 1887, what hypothetical medium were scientists trying to detect?
Answer
Luminiferous aether
Which bacterium causes diphtheria, a disease marked by a thick throat membrane?
Answer
Corynebacterium diphtheriae
Which bacterium is traditionally used with Streptococcus thermophilus to make yogurt?
Answer
Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus
Which bacterium is used to make the insecticidal protein in the biological pesticide Bt?
Answer
Bacillus thuringiensis
Which protozoan parasite causes malaria and is responsible for the disease’s most severe cases?
Answer
Plasmodium falciparum
Which bacterium was used to discover streptomycin, the first effective antibiotic against tuberculosis?
Answer
Streptomyces griseus
Which bacterium is famous for surviving doses of radiation that would kill most other organisms?
Answer
Deinococcus radiodurans
Which bacterium was the first organism whose complete genome was published, in 1995?
Answer
Haemophilus influenzae
What is the name of the boundary between Earth’s crust and mantle?
Answer
Mohorovičić discontinuity
Which mineral group makes up most of Earth’s continental crust?
Answer
Feldspar
What was the name of the first all-private crew mission to the International Space Station?
Answer
Axiom Mission 1
What was the name of the spacecraft that won the Ansari X Prize in 2004?
Answer
SpaceShipOne
What was the name of SpaceX’s first successful orbital launch, achieved in September 2008?
Answer
Falcon 1 Flight 4
Which physicist shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics for proposing the nuclear shell model?
Answer
Maria Goeppert Mayer
Which scientist discovered transposons, or “jumping genes,” in maize?
Answer
Barbara McClintock
Which astronomer discovered that stars are mainly composed of hydrogen and helium?
Answer
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
Which scientist developed the first widely used vaccine against smallpox?
Answer
Edward Jenner
Which British scientist discovered pulsars in 1967 as a graduate student?
Answer
Jocelyn Bell Burnell
Which medical imaging technology did Godfrey Hounsfield help invent, earning the 1979 Nobel Prize?
Answer
Computed tomography
Which scientist created the first vaccine against rabies in 1885?
Answer
Louis Pasteur
Which vaccine became the first mRNA vaccine authorized for emergency use against COVID-19?
Answer
Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine
What rule gives the direction of the magnetic field around a straight current-carrying wire?
Answer
Right-hand grip rule
What is the approximate speed of electromagnetic waves in a vacuum?
Answer
299,792,458 metres per second
What law explains why electric current is the same at every point in a simple series circuit?
Answer
Kirchhoff’s current law