10 Questions about A Trivia Challenge for Quick Minds & Fast Fingers | General

Answer: lycanthropy

Also known as zoanthropy, clinical lycanthropy is actually a rare psychiatric disorder, and the patient may imagine that he transforms into any sort of animal, not necessarily a wolf. In Japan, for example, foxes and dogs are a more common delusion than wolves. The patient may believe he has been an animal in the past (and may become again), or the patient may behave in the presence of observers like an animal, by growla ing, crawling, howling, etc.

In the journal 'Psychopoathology', a clinician described the 1989 case study of person who reported to change from human to canine, to a horse, and then finally to cat, before changing back into a human. Treatment of clinical lycanthropy includes using antipsychotic medication and mood-stabilizing medication, preferably integrated with approaches that address social and cultural factors that obviously affect the content of the delusion. A 2021 article in the journal "Frontiers in Psychiatry" suggested a possible connection between the delusion and immersion into digital media (social networks, video games, TV series) among adolescent patients.

Answer: Harrison's chronometer

John Harrison invented the first practical marine chronometer, often referred to as Harrison's chronometer, which allows one to calculate longitude by comparing the time at the Prime Meridian (the Greenwich Mean) to the time determined at sea by the position of celestial bodies.

It solved a major problem for determining one's exact position at sea, which requires knowing longitude, latitude, and altitude. Altitude is a given on an ocean voyage (sea level), and longitude is easily determined by measuring the sun's angle when it reaches its highest point in the sky.

But longitude required a timepiece to accurately measure the time at a known fixed point, and before Harrison's chronometer there were no reliable timepieces on a moving vessel. The rolling motion of the sea would render the most accurate timepieces of the day, pendulum clocks, useless.

Answer: rowing

In old public-school slang, a schoolboy who goes in for rowing or crew was called a "wet bob", while a lad who goes in for cricket or football was a "dry bob". The terms are a bit dated in the 21st century, but Harry Mount of "The Spectator" reported in 2013 that in rural boarding schools of the UK, the old slang still thrives.

He observed that at Eton, for example, they still used "dry bob" and "wet bob". "In these exotic bubbles," he wrote, "archaisms linger on for ever."

Answer: Robert Gray

Robert Gray (1755-1806) circumnavigated the globe not once, but twice. His voyages to the Pacific Northwest pioneered the American maritime fur trade there, on his first voyage (1787-1790). On his second voyage (1790-1793), when Gray sailed into the Columbia River, his was the first documented ship to anchor in the river's broad estuary.

He named the river after his ship, the "Columbia Rediviva". A relatively obscure figure was Gray, and not much is known about him before or after these journeys.

He likely died of yellow fever in South Carolina in 1806, though it is not documented. Despite his monumental accomplishments, he remains an obscure figure.

Answer: Rhode Island

Providence is the current capital of the U.S. State of Rhode Island. Providence Plantations was the first permanent European American settlement in what is now Rhode Island, and the colony as a whole was known as the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations until it renounced allegiance to the British Crown in 1776. The Paris Peace Treaty of 30 September 1783 ended the American Revolutionary War and granted the former Thirteen Colonies, now recognized by His Britannic Majesty as the United States of America, independence. The older and longer name was used for Rhode Island, as was "Massachusetts Bay" for the state of Massachusetts.

In the Treaty of Paris, both parties pledged "to forget all past misunderstandings and differences that have unhappily interrupted the good correspondence and friendship which they mutually wish to restore, and to establish such a beneficial and satisfactory intercourse, between the two countries upon the ground of reciprocal advantages and mutual convenience as may promote and secure to both perpetual peace and harmony...". The document mandated that all prisoners of war be set free and promised "a firm and perpetual peace between his Britannic Majesty and the said states".

Answer: animals

Maria Dickin founded in 1917 the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA), a charity to provide veterinary care in the UK for the indigent. In 1943 she established the Dickin Medal to honor the work of animals serving in the military in World War II. Nicknamed "the animals' Victoria Cross", the Medal bears the words "For Gallantry" and "We Also Serve".

Fifty-four animals (32 pigeons, 18 dogs, 3 horses, and one ship's cat) received PDSA Dinkin Medals between 1943 and 1949. After the award was revived in 2000, an additional 18 dogs and one horse (the War Horse Warrior on behalf of all horses in World War I) had received the award through 2021. In 2002 the charity instituted the PDSA Gold Medal as the civilian counterpart, nicknamed "the animals' George Cross". The PDSA order of Merit ("the animals' OBE") was added in 2014 for animals who show outstanding devotion above and beyond ordinary companionship.

Answer: litre

One litre or liter is a unit of capacity equal to one hundred cubic centimeters (100 cc). To put it another way, one liter is the volume of one kilogram of distilled water at 4°C (X°F). American students are taught that a liter is "a little bit more than a quart." To be more precise, a liter is a little more than a U.S. liquid quart and a little less than a U.S. dry quart. And yes, there's a difference between liquid and dry measures adopted by the United States Customary System.

This difference does not exist in the modern metric system, although there used to be dry unit called the 'stere', equal to one cubic meter, despite the fact that a cubic meter dry or liquid represents the same volume. (The stere may still be seen in measurements of wood simply for convenience.)

Answer: Gehrig

The longtime first baseman of the New York Yankees was forced to retire shortly before his famous Independence Day speech because of amylotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. On that hot, muggy day at Yankee Stadium, he uttered these famous words: "For the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth." He praised his colleagues, his manager Joe McCarthy, his wife, and even his mother-in-law, and ended by saying, "...I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for. Thank you."

Six months later, the Baseball Writer's Association of America voted unanimously to suspend the normal waiting period and to enter Gehrig into the Baseball Hall of Fame immediately. Gehrig would succumb to the disease in 1941.

ALS is progressive neurogenerative condition with no cure but medical advances since Gehrig's day have lengthened the time that sufferers can remain independent and prolong quality of life.

Answer: seven

All dice, not just six-sided dice, are intentionally designed so that each opposite face adds up to one more than the total number of faces. In other words, for each n-sided die, the opposite faces add up to n+1. A six-sided die (which is a cube) has each pair of opposite faces adding up to 6. A twenty-sided die (an isocahedron), such as that used in tabletop role-playing games, has opposite faces adding up to 21.

This was not, however, always the case in the history of games! The dice of ancient Rome, for example, had opposite sides adding up to prime numbers; so 1 was opposite 2, 3 opposite 4, and 5 opposite 6. The "seven" configuration was arrived at for numerical balance. While in perfectly formed dice, the configuration of pips would not matter, no die is 100% free of manufacturing defects, like bubbles or slight imbalances. Spreading out the numbers so that there is the same number of pips in each pair of sides compensates for any slight defects which might be magnified if the weight were further imbalanced by clustering too many pips in one portion or the other of the cube.

Answer: guitar

Lester Polsfuss was born in 1915 in Wisconsin, and from the 1930s he was a prominent guitarist, either as a staff musician in various radio stations, backing Bing Crosby, performing for FDR at the White House, or releasing hits like "How High the Moon"(1951) with singer Mary Ford, his wife.

In 1946, Les pushed for Ted McCarty, president of the Gibson Guitar Corporation, to produce a solid-body electric guitar that could be heard in noisy nightclubs without producing feedback, but McCarthy called it a "broomstick with pickups". But eventually, the Gibson company was persuaded, and the Gibson Les Paul Goldtop premiered in 1952. Then came the Les Paul Custom in 1954, along with the Les Paul Junior. Starting in 1957, the Custom and Standard models were equipped with twin-coil pickups. Paul was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2005 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, and he received a National Medal of Arts in 2007.