Yellow: Blue's Complement Trivia Quiz

Answer: Brick Road

"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" is the name of Elton John's 1973 album and the title track ballad from it. In the film, Dorothy is told to follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City in order to find her way home.

Songwriter Bernie Taupin is said to have been inspired by the 1939 film. The film was based on the children's novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L Frank Baum. Due to popular demand, L Frank Baum eventually wrote 13 sequels although none were originally planned.

The song tells of a desire for a simpler life, rather than the trappings of success. There are plenty of allegorical interpretations for the book, however it is unclear that there were any intended by the author.

Here's another yellow bit of trivia: Elton John's first concert in Vermont in 2008 inspired Ben and Jerry's to create a limited edition ice cream called 'Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road'.

Answer: Saffron

Collected by hand from a crocus flower (Crocus sativus), the spice has been traded for over 4,000 years. This variety of crocus does not occur in the wild, is male sterile and is typically propagated by vegetative reproduction (the corms or bulbs are dug up, split up and replanted).

There is a one or two week period in autumn when the crocus flowers. The flowers emerge around dawn and quickly wilt during the day so rapid picking is required. Around 150 flowers will produce a gram of the dried spice. Most of the world's production comes from Iran.

Answer: Liver

Yellows eyes (and yellow skin) can be a sign of a failing liver and indicative of diseases like jaundice, hepatitis and cirrhosis. The colour is typically caused by a build-up of the yellow-coloured pigment bilirubin in the blood. Bilirubin comes from the breakdown of old red blood corpuscles and is normally processed by the liver and expelled from the body through bile.

It is also behind the yellow colouring in bruises.

Answer: Mosquito

Most cases of the disease are caused by the bite of the yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti), although some other Aedes genus mosquitoes can act as vectors. The female Aedes mosquito becomes a carrier after biting an infected person or other primate. It is also a mosquito (Anopheles genus) which is responsible for transmitting malaria.

A three or four day infection with fever, headache, vomiting, etc is the norm. Around 15% of those infected go on to the second toxic stage when the liver damage occurs, with 20% or more of this group dying. There is no cure although there is an effective vaccine.

An estimated 30,000 die from the disease each year with 90% of those in Africa. The disease is usually found in tropical and sub-tropical regions of African and South America. The trans-Atlantic slave trade is thought to have brought the disease to South America.

Answer: Van Gogh

Painted during the late 1880s whilst living in France, Van Gogh produced a number of sunflower paintings which are grouped in two series. At least some of them were painted with his friend and fellow artist Paul Gauguin in mind.

Nearly 100 years later in 1987, $40 million was paid by a Japanese collector for one of these sunflower paintings - a world record for a work of art at the time and nearly four times the previous record. Van Gogh was never wealthy and only ever sold one painting during his lifetime - 'Red Vineyard at Arles'.

Answer: Donovan and East Asia

The phrase is a composite one consisting of "Mellow Yellow", the Donovan song first released in 1966 and rumoured to be about burnt banana skins, and the 'Yellow Peril', a racist fear of an East Asian menace to the West coined in the nineteenth century by the German Emperor Wilhelm II.

Answer: Japan and Russia

During the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), the Russian fleet in Port Arthur (now the city and seaport of Dalian in the south of Liaoning Province, People's Republic of China) sought to join up with their compatriots in Vladivostok. The Japanese wished to destroy the Russian fleet. Neither achieved their objectives.

From up to eight miles range, 10 battleships, 14 cruisers and 32 destroyers fired nearly 7,400 shells over a seven hour period with a hit rate of 1.7%. Three battleships suffered severe damage and the Russians lost their admiral.

Answer: Nitrogen

Diamond colour is usually due to impurities or structural defects. Without these, a diamond is colourless. Nitrogen can give yellow or brown tints to diamonds, boron may give a light blue colour, radiation can produce a green tint, and sulphide impurities produce black diamonds. Structural defects can cause pink, red or brown tints.

The Tiffany Yellow Diamond takes its name after New York jeweller Charles Tiffany who bought it in the 1870s.

Answer: Uranium concentrate powder

Yellowcake, also known as urania, is a processing product of uranium ores. It is about 80% uranium oxide and is actually brown or black when using modern processing techniques. Older processes produced the yellow colour and cake consistency which gives it its name. It has low levels of radioactivity and a half life of over four billion years.

Yellowcake is used in the production of nuclear fuels and weapons. It is this usage and the appearance of documents purporting to show Saddam Hussein, then President of Iraq, was attempting to buy yellowcake from Niger that was part of the justification for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. These documents turned out to be forgeries. The incident is known as the Yellowcake forgery or the Niger uranium forgeries. It is not clear who forged the documents.

Answer: A geyser

Yellowstone is host to North America's largest volcanic area where you can columnar basalt, hot mud pools and, of course, geysers. In fact there are some 10,000 geothermal features in the park including over 1,200 geysers (of which 465 are active in any one year). Two-thirds of the world's geysers are to be found here.