Question 1: What type of rock is formed from cooled lava or magma?
Question 2: If you combine a female donkey and a male horse, what is the name of the resulting offspring?
A mule is the offspring of a male donkey (jack) and a female horse (mare). Mules possess characteristics of both of their parents - they have the strength and intelligence of the donkey, and the speed and agility of the horse. Mules are almost always sterile and cannot reproduce.
Question 3: Why was penicillin such an important discovery?
Penicillin, discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming, revolutionized medicine as the first antibiotic effective against many deadly bacterial infections such as pneumonia, gonorrhea and rheumatic fever. Its discovery ushered in the era of antibiotics.
Question 4: What musical tells the story of founding father Alexander Hamilton?
Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the music, lyrics and book for Hamilton. The show made its Off-Broadway debut in 2015 and transferred to Broadway later that year. It won 11 Tony Awards in 2016, including Best Musical.
Question 5: What was the capital city of the ancient Mayan civilization?
At its height in the 8th century AD, Tikal was one of the most powerful city-states in the Maya world with an estimated population of 100,000 to 200,000 people. The ruins of Tikal contain over 3,000 structures including temples, palaces and ceremonial platforms.
Question 6: What is the term for the inability to recognize faces?
Prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness, is a cognitive disorder characterized by the inability to recognize familiar faces, including one's own face. It is often caused by lesions or damage to the fusiform gyrus region of the brain.
Question 7: When was barbed wire invented?
Barbed wire was invented by American farmer Joseph Glidden in 1873. Its invention greatly changed the development of the American West, enabling effective fencing of cattle ranges on the Great Plains.
Question 8: How many countries have agreed to the Paris Agreement on climate change?
The Paris Agreement is an international treaty on climate change that was adopted by 196 Parties at COP21 in Paris in December 2015. The agreement aims to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to limit global temperature increase in this century to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, while pursuing means to limit the increase to 1.5°C.
Question 9: Which country celebrates Diwali, the festival of lights?
Diwali is India's biggest and most important holiday of the year. The festival gets its name from the row (avali) of clay lamps (deepa) that Indians light outside their homes to symbolize the inner light that protects from spiritual darkness.
Question 10: In which Shakespeare play does the character Mercutio appear?
Mercutio is Romeo's close friend and kinsman to Prince Escalus in Romeo and Juliet. He is known for his witty and often bawdy sense of humor, as seen in his famous "Queen Mab" speech in Act 1, Scene 4.
The word "igneous" comes from the Latin word "ignis" which means fire. Igneous rocks make up approximately 15% of the Earth's current land surface.