Science & Nature50 randomly selected Science & Nature questions for quizmasters. New random selection made weekly. Next update: Monday 27th April 2026 (Please note: Questions are taken from our database of previous quizzes. Some questions and answers may be outdated.) |
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| 1. | Mars has two moons. Name them. |
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Phobos and Deimos | |
| 2. | What Greek mathematician, born c. 325 BC, is known as the "father of geometry"? |
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Euclid | |
| 3. | Chinese for "sand skin", what breed of dog is this? |
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Shar-Pei (Cantonese: shā pèih or Mandarin: 沙皮 shā pí) | |
| 4. | How many prime numbers are there between 10 and 20? |
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4 (11,13,17,19) | |
| 5. | In human anatomy, what 'F' describes the soft membranous gaps on an infant's skull? |
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Fontanelle / Fontanel | |
| 6. | When ρ = m/V, what does 'ρ' stand for? |
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Density (ρ is the lower case Greek letter rho, most often used for density) | |
| 7. | What marine animal is this? |
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Cuttlefish | |
| 8. | Medial epicondylitis is better known by what sport-related term? |
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Golfer's elbow (Tennis elbow is lateral epicondylitis) | |
| 9. | What colour are Edelweiss flowers? |
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White (edel means "noble" and weiß means "white") | |
| 10. | A fine imaging device, what do the initials SEM stand for? |
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Scanning Electron Microscope | |
| 11. | In simple terms, what is Newton's second law of motion? |
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Force equals mass times acceleration (F = ma) | |
| 12. | By what abbreviation is deoxyribonucleic acid better known? |
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DNA | |
| 13. | What 'G' is a soft, silvery metal that melts at 30°C (86°F)? |
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Gallium | |
| 14. | What chemical element is represented by the symbol P? |
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Phosphorus | |
| 15. | A mosquito-borne tropical disease, what is another name for breakbone fever? |
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Dengue | |
| 16. | Indigenous to Mexico and Central America, what 'P' is sometimes known as the "Christmas flower"? |
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Poinsettia | |
| 17. | What unit of power is defined as a derived unit of 1 joule per second? |
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Watt | |
| 18. | The anterior scalene, middle scalene, and posterior scalene are a group of three pairs of muscles in what part of the body? |
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Neck | |
| 19. | In technical drawing terms, what does CAD stand for? |
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Computer-aided design | |
| 20. | What type of acid is stomach acid? |
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Hydrochloric acid | |
| 21. | In computing, most commonly, how many bits are there in a byte? |
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8 | |
| 22. | What single Imperial or U.S. measure is equal to 453.59237 grams? |
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1 pound | |
| 23. | What metal has the highest electrical conductivity of any element, the highest thermal conductivity of any metal, and is the most reflective metal on the planet? |
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Silver | |
| 24. | In the maths acronyms PEMDAS, BEDMAS, BODMAS and BIDMAS, what does the D stand for? |
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Division | |
| 25. | To the nearest whole number, what percentage of the Earth's atmosphere is nitrogen? |
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78 (78.084%) | |
| 26. | What 'A' secrete honeydew as they feed on plant sap? |
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Aphids | |
| 27. | Where in the human body would you find the Hyaloid canal? |
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Eyes (between the optical nerve disc and the lens) | |
| 28. | Native to the islands of Southeast Asia, what 'T' describes this small primate? |
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Tarsier | |
| 29. | In plants and animals, what part of a cell contains nearly all its genetic material? |
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Nucleus | |
| 30. | Mycology is the study of what? |
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Fungi (from the Greek μύκης, meaning "fungus") | |
| 31. | One of the largest of its kind in the world, with up to 21 limbs, what type of starfish is this? |
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Crown-of-thorns | |
| 32. | What 'E' describes the mechanism in a timepiece that controls the transfer of energy from the power source to the counting mechanism? |
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Escapement | |
| 33. | Native to the deserts of North Africa, what 'F' describes this species of fox? |
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Fennec (Vulpes zerda) | |
| 34. | What is the Latin medical term for your shoulder blade? |
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Scapula | |
| 35. | What family of seabirds include species called White, Spectacled, Common, Black, and Arctic? |
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Tern | |
| 36. | The base unit of luminous intensity in the International System of Units (SI) is represented by the symbol cd. What is cd an abbreviation of? |
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Candela | |
| 37. | Invented at IBM by Alan Shugart in 1967, the first floppy drives introduced in 1971 used a disk that was how many inches in diameter? |
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8 (evolving into the 5.25-inch disk that was used on the first IBM Personal Computer in August 1981) | |
| 38. | At 4.25 light-years, what is the nearest-known star to the Sun? |
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Proxima Centauri | |
| 39. | What colour is orange blossom? |
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White | |
| 40. | What is a sphygmomanometer used to measure? |
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Blood pressure | |
| 41. | In computing terminology, what does BIOS stand for? |
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Basic Input/Output System | |
| 42. | What is the name of the planet that orbits between Mars and Venus around the sun? |
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Earth | |
| 43. | To the nearest whole number, how many revolutions does the moon make around the earth in a calendar year? |
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13 | |
| 44. | To the nearest whole number, how many times stronger is Earth's gravity compared to that of the Moon? |
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6 (9.807 m/s2 / 1.622 m/s2) | |
| 45. | What is tested using a Snellen chart? |
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Eyesight / Visual acuity | |
| 46. | How many edges does a tetrahedron have? |
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6 | |
| 47. | Write down the chemical symbols for potassium, nitrogen, oxygen and tungsten, in that order, to reveal a four-letter word. |
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Know (K - N - O - W) | |
| 48. | Approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth, what is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way? |
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Andromeda | |
| 49. | What road safety feature did Englishman Percy Shaw invent in 1935? |
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"Cat's eyes" - Reflective road stud (later developed in the U.S.A. as "Botts' dots") | |
| 50. | What is the English name for the flowering plant named, in French, pissenlit or "wet the bed"? |
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Dandelion (from the French dent de lion, "lions tooth") | |
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