New Scientist 2011 holiday quiz

Caveman fashion, a giant of both science and literature, Trekkie dreams and much more in our end-of-year quiz

AS IS clear to anyone who possesses even the most cursory interest in the news, future historians will almost certainly mark 2011 as the year of the first robot-insect wars.

Robots were the aggressors, and they proved to be canny combatants, stealing strategies from the living world. Some adopted new forms based on the Venus flytrap that could fuel themselves on the flesh of insects (22 October, p 24). Meanwhile, others tried out a robot chameleon tongue for longer-range strikes (16 April, p 26).

While this momentous development obviously dwarfs all other events, it wasn't the only thing that happened in 2011. Try our traditional end-of-year quiz to see if you are a truly dedicated follower of science. If you need a helping hand you can look up the answer in the relevant issue.

US

1) Early humans may not have been as brutishly accoutred as we once believed. That is according to a report from 26 February which described what tentatively inferred flowering of caveman fashion?
a) In north-eastern Africa, Homo ergaster carried crocodile-skin bags
b) Siberian Denisovans sported fur hats
c) Italian Neanderthals wore bird feathers
d) French Cro-Magnons suffered in high heels

2) Watching seven straight hours of television specials over the holidays might send you slightly haywire, but seasonal consumption could have an even more profound effect on your being. In our 1 October issue, we described how the workings of your DNA could be modified by genetic material from:
a) Turkey meat
b) Cranberry sauce
c) Brussels sprouts
d) Eggnog

3) The scent of a woman's tears has a surprising effect on men, as we revealed on 15 January. Does it:
a) increase men's spending in subsequent shopping trips
b) send them to sleep
c) reduce their ability to read maps
d) diminish sexual arousal

4) A landmark in the evolution of human speech came with the loss of our air sac - "a balloon-like organ that helps primates to produce booming noises", according to an article on 26 November. The piece reports the result of an experiment involving plastic tubes and puffs of air, which suggests the earliest human utterance may have been:
a) Ugg
b) Duh
c) Mama
d) Unaccustomed as I am

5) A lucky few can master both art and science. On 5 February, we reported on a certain literary giant's scientific research, now vindicated by a modern study. Was it:
a) Anton Chekhov's work on the cultivation of trees of the genus Prunus
b) Fyodor Dostoevsky's work on the psychology of addiction
c) Vladimir Nabokov's work on the genitals of butterflies
d) Ivan Turgenev's work on the astronomical calendar of a Siberian tribe

THEM

6) Drugs are in our schools, below the waves as above. What variety of high fish did we report on 29 January?
a) Canadian trout chilling out on Prozac, which is being piped into the St Lawrence seaway via the sewers
b) Brazilian piranhas hopped up on caffeine, brewed by guarana berries dropping into the Rio Negro
c) Soused herring, drinking in the waste products of a vodka distillery that leaks into a lake in Finland
d) Psychedelic seahorses of Suriname, which derive LSD from their diet of really, really colourful shrimp

7) If you happen to be partial to rodent meat, steer clear of the African crested rat. As we explained in an article on 6 August, it can deter or kill hungry jackals and lions by:
a) Being swallowed whole and eating its way out from inside their stomachs
b) Being swallowed whole and using its spines to lodge itself in their oesophagus
c) Chewing poisonous bark and daubing the toxins into a special tuft of its own spongy hair
d) Chewing poisonous bark and spitting the toxins in its assailant's eyes

TWO-FACED TECH

8) Cloaking devices, replicators, teleportation... these Star Trek-esque technologies may already seem like old hat to the readers of New Scientist. But which other Trekkie dream did we report as a real possibility on 12 March?
a) doors that go phshhht
b) universal translators
c) photon torpedoes
d) tractor beams

9) The awesome power of technology to be annoying and intrusive may know no bounds. An article in our 7 May issue described a clever new way to bombard us with advertising images by:
a) projecting them onto the windows of moving cars
b) projecting them onto the ground in front of a pedestrian
c) projecting them onto clouds
d) burning them permanently into your retinas

THE END

10) Whimper if you will, but one day the universe is probably going to end. What ghastly new kind of cosmic catastrophe did we report on 24 September?
a) The big slap (parallel universes collide)
b) The big snap (lack of information destroys all matter)
c) The big slurp (space and time get sucked down the cosmic plughole)
d) The big burp (blast of energy escapes from a giant white hole)

ANSWERS

1 c, 2 c, 3 d, 4 b, 5 c, 6 a, 7 c, 8 d, 9 a, 10 b

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