D in Science Trivia Quiz

Answer: Otto Diels

Otto Diels, a professor of chemistry at the University of Kiel in Germany and his student Kurt Alder shared the prize for their discoveries concerning the structure of organic matter. Their discovery is called the diene synthesis, and is also known as the Diels-Alder Reaction.

Answer: Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday (1791-1867) was fascinated by electricity. In addition to the dynamo, he invented the transformer and the direct current motor. Despite his humble beginnings - he was the son of a very poor family and was self-educated - he became a protege of the great Sir Humphrey Davy, and grew to great prominence among the British scientific elite. Harvey Firestone founded the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in 1900, Reginald Fessenden was the Canadian inventor of wireless telephony (1900), and Nathan Fillion is a Canadian actor who worked on 'Serenity', and 'Slither', among others.

Answer: Humphrey Davy

Sir Humphrey (sometimes spelled Humphry) Davy is best remembered for the invention of the Davy Lamp used by miners. Davy was born in Penzance, Cornwall in 1778. By the age of 24 he was a professor of chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

He was a pioneer of the science of electrochemistry and also discovered six new elements including sodium amd potassium. He was instrumental in furthering the career of Michael Faraday. John Dalton was the British scientist who developed the first modern atomic theory in 1803, and Sir Liam Donaldson is the Chief Medical Officer of the U.K. Leonardo da Vinci was a true Renaissance man who not only achieved fame as an artist ('Mona Lisa' and 'The Last Supper' are probably his most famous works), but also conducted experiments in human-powered flight and engaged in other scientic endeavours.

Answer: Doppler radar

Austrian physicist and mathematician (Johann) Christian Andreas Doppler (1803-1853) was the discoverer of what is now called the Doppler Effect, which is the change in frequency of light, sound or other waves as they move toward or away from the observer.

The Doppler Effect has many applications: in astronomy, meteorology, medical technology (ultrasound, echocardiograms, neurological scans), and in radar. The Distant Early Warning system (known as the DEW line) was a string of radar stations in the far north of Canada set up by NORAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command) to monitor potential threats of air attack by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Dowsing is the art of finding underground water sources and Divination is the art of reading such things as the entrails of birds to predict events.

Answer: Archimedes

Immersion of any solid mass in water causes displacement, as Archimedes observed when he got into his bathtub. In the 19th century, British politician Samuel Plimsoll promoted legislation that would give clear indication as to the level to which a cargo ship could be loaded.

In his honour, this is called the Plimsoll Line. The height of the imaginary line on the hull of the ship depends on whether the ship will be plying ocean waters or freshwater. The reason Plimsoll promoted the Line was the practice of many exporters who would overload ships with merchandise in order to reap greater profits, thus making the voyage perilous for the sailors. Euclid was a mathematician who specialized in geometry and algebra, Pythagoras is the man who propogated the geometric theorem that the area of the square on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the area of the squares on the other two sides, and Diogenes was the Greek philosopher who searched high and low for an honest man.

Answer: Darwin

John T. Scopes was the centre of a storm of controversy in Tennessee in 1925 for violating the Butler Act, passed by the Tennessee General Assembly in March, 1925. The Butler Act legislated "...that it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals, and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." Scopes was found guilty and ordered to pay a $100.00 fine.

The conviction was appealed to the Supreme Court of Tennessee, and set aside on a legal technicality because the judge had imposed the fine and not the jury, and Tennessee judges were not allowed to set fines above $50.00. Meanwhile, the debate about Darwinism vs Creationism (now called Intelligent Design) continues in Tennessee - and other places - to this day!

Answer: Cambridge University, England

The momentous discovery of the double helix molecule of DNA by Francis Crick and James Watson was made in 1953 in the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University. DNA itself had been identified in the 1860s, but full attention to the simple acid was not paid until the 1940s. That's when scientists discovered that chromosomes, which carry hereditary information, were made up of DNA and proteins. Once it was proved that DNA is the genetic carrier, it became the focus of widespread scientific research. Crick and Watson used the information gathered by other research scientists like Linus Pauling and Ernest Chargaff as the basis for their work.

Their early experiments proved to be fruitless and the Cavendish authorities ordered them to discontinue the project, but Crick and Watson carried on in secret with their team - Rosalind Franklin, Raymond Gosling and Maurice Wilkins.

They built wire and metal DNA models and eventually lighted on the double helix structure. In 1962, they shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine with their co-researcher Maurice Wilkins.

Answer: a microscopic unicellular alga

Did you know that diotomaceous earth is "a soft, fine-grained deposit composed of fossil diatoms, used as a filter, filler, etc. in various manufacturing processes, and as an insecticide in gardening." ? That's also according to my Canadian Oxford Dictionary.

Answer: nausea and motion sickness

Dimenhydrinate is available as Gravol or Dramamine. As a sufferer from motion sickness, I am grateful to the person who discovered the beneficial effects of dimenhydrinate. It is a salt of two other drugs - dyphenhydramine (+) and 8-chlorotheophyllinate (-).

Answer: Tree rings

Dendrochronologists study and date the annual growth rings in trees. The word comes from the Greek word for tree - dendros, the Greek word for time - chronos, and the Greek word for study - ologos. The practical applications of dendrochronology are varied. Scientists use dendrochronolgy to date fossilized trees, to determine the effects of weather and soil conditions on tree growth (for instance, exessively dry or wet conditions affect the ring formation and scientists are able thereby to determine prevailing weather patterns during the tree's life), and also to improve their understanding of possible environmental effects in the future.