| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Explorer 66 found slight anisotropies in this phenomenon, which it extensively studied. An inverse form of Compton scattering results in distortions to this phenomenon via the (+) Sunyaev- Zeldovich effect. This phenomenon maintains a thermal black body spectrum at roughly 2.725 Kelvins, which is associated with a slight glow (*) detected by radio telescopes. For the points, name this form of radiation left over from the Big Bang. | Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (or CMB or CMBR; accept Relic Radiation; prompt on partial answers) |
| One member of this genus is the most common cause of gas gangrene, in which gas bubbles form in necrotic tissue. Spores of one member in this genus cause drooping eyelids and weak muscles (+) and is often caused by improperly canning foods at home. One bacterium in this genus is the reason that infants should not be fed raw honey, while another bacterium in this genus can cause (*) lockjaw via punctured wounds. For the points, name this genus of bacteria that causes tetanus and botulism. | Clostridium (accept Clostridium tetani; accept Clostridium botulinum) |
| A liquid-liquid extraction method named for this element and a lighter counterpart is called PUREX, which mostly purifies this element’s 239 isotope. This element has the highest atomic number (+) of any naturally occurring element. The earliest synthetic production of this element involved the beta-decay of neptunium-238 that occurred after (*) uranium was bombarded with deuterium nuclei by Glenn Seaborg. For the points, name this radioactive element named for what was considered the ninth planet from the Sun. | Plutonium (prompt on "Pu") |
| Two scientists from this country are the namesake of a vaccine against tuberculosis called the BCG vaccine. An astronomer from this country published a catalogue of 110 nebulae (+) and star clusters, while a physicist from this country gives his name to the SI unit of pressure of stress. An inventor from this country developed a reading and writing system for the (*) blind. For the points, name this country home to Blaise Pascal and Louis Braille. | France (or French Republic) |
| Two implementations of this programming task are stop-and-copy and mark-and sweep, and this process can be used to eliminate dangling pointer bugs (+) and memory leaks. Languages which perform this process automatically include Java and C# [[C Sharp]], while languages like C require manual implementation of this process. (*) For the points, name this memory management practice in which a program automatically deletes unused objects. | Garbage Collection |
| This person's discoveries were the inspiration for a pictorial representation by Henry De la Beche called Duria Anterior, a more ancient Dorset. This person was accused by Georges Cuvier as "a fraud" (+) after she discovered the first known plesiosaur skeletons. When this person was 12 years old, she completed her brother's finding of a skull fossil of an ichthyosaur by (*) discovering the rest of its skeleton. For the points, name this English fossil collector whose discoveries were made at her native Lyme Regis. | Mary Anning |
| A mechanic named Peter Desaga assisted in the design of this object, which was based on designs by R. W. Elsner. These objects often contain a hose barb that is connected to a nozzle (+) and can often be placed on top of a laboratory tripod. Butane or propane are among the single sources of gas that can be produced by this piece of equipment, which is used to (*) sterilize loops in microbiology. For the points, name this piece of lab equipment that emits open flame and is named for a German scientist. | Bunsen Burner |
| This type of radiation is emitted by a Wood’s lamp, or a blacklight, which is used in crime scenes to detect trace evidence of blood. This form of radiation and LED light are common varieties used in gel nail (+) lamps. Glowscreen is a product created by Supergoop! to protect against this form of radiation, whose wavelength spans between 10 to (*) 400 nanometers. For the points, name his form of electromagnetic radiation that is present in sunlight. | Ultraviolet Radiation (or Ultraviolet Light; or UV Radiation or UV Light; accept UV-A or UV-B; prompt on “Electromagnetic Radiation”) |
| Aldehydes and ketones are converted into these molecules in the Wolff-Kishner reduction. Complete hydrogenation of benzene produces a cyclic (+) six-carbon example of these molecules. These molecules can be classified as either straight-chain or branched-chain and have the general formula “C n, H 2n plus 2.” The suffix -ane is used to name, (*) for the points, what class of hydrocarbons which only contain carbon-carbon single bonds? | Alkanes (accept Cycloalkanes; accept Straight-chain Alkanes; accept Branched-chain Alkanes; prompt on “Hydrocarbons”; do not accept or prompt on “Alkenes” or “Alkynes”) |
| This substance stores almost half of all soil carbon despite only covering 3% of the world’s land, making its biomes the most efficient carbon sinks. Muskegs are ecosystems characterized by producing (+) this material over permafrost from sphagnum moss. This substance is formed in namesake bogs and can eventually progress into (*) coal. For the points, name this material made of partially decayed plant matter than can be burned as fuel. | Peat (prompt on “Turf”) |
| This scientist's boss, the British polymath Henry Thompson, once described this man as "a shy Quaker [who] had a better microscope than any man in the college." This man invented the "donkey engine," (+) in which he used it to spray carbolic acid before operating on an abscess growing under Queen Victoria's armpit. (*) For the points, name this British surgeon and medical scientist referred to as the "father of antiseptic surgery." | Joseph Lister |
| A protein that acts on these structures has unique TERT reverse transcriptase activity and is also called terminal transferase. The length of these structures slowly decreases (+) up until the Hayflick limit. In humans, these structures have repeats of the sequence TTAGGG and shorten every cell cycle, which leads to progressive aging and (*) cell death when they are depleted. For the points, name these DNA sequences that protect the ends of chromosomes. | Telomeres (prompt on “Chromosomes”) |
| This region is where icy noctilucent clouds form, which are only visible at twilight and are thus called “night shining clouds.” This region contains a thick sodium layer (+) that is regenerated by meteorites, which first become visible in this region. The turbopause lies near the upper end of this region, which is the (*) coldest portion of Earth’s atmosphere. For the points, name this atmospheric layer located between the stratosphere and the thermosphere. | Mesosphere |
| On the top of a planet's surface, this spacecraft confirmed the existence of a phenomenon dubbed the "hexagon storm," which is believed to have been caused by jet streams. (+) This spacecraft, which observed the feature that resembles "Pac-Man" on the moon Tethys, was launched in 1997 along with the European Space Agency's Huygens probe. Over 100 flybys of (*) Titan were completed by, for the points, what spacecraft that explored the planet Saturn? | Cassini-Huygens |
| A value named after this man was first calculated by Johann Josef Loschmidt. A law named after this man is represented by the formula "V1 over n1 equals V2 over n2," (+) which states that volume varies directly with the amount of gas at constant temperature and pressure. This man lends his name to a constant equal to (*) 6.022 times 10 to the 23rd power. For the points, name this Italian scientist whose constant is the number of particles in one mole of any substance. | Avogadro (or Amedeo Avogadro; or Lorenzo Romano Amedeo Carlo Avogadro; accept Avogadro's Law; accept Avogadro's Number; accept Avogadro's Constant) |
| This phenomenon has led to the local near-extinction of sturgeon in the genus Pseudoscaphirhynchus [[SOO-do-SCAF-fee-RINK-us]]. Shifts in the appearance of Rebirth Island are among the indicators of this process, (+) which has partly been attributed to the construction of the Karakum Canal. The growth of the cotton industry in the Soviet Union led the (*) Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers to be diverted away from a body of water, which caused this process. For the points, name this phenomenon, which has decreased the size of a once large lake in central Asia. | Shrinking of the Aral Sea (accept equivalents like Drying up of the Aral Sea; prompt on partial answers) |
| In 1934, while an apprentice under Dorothy Liddell in Swanscombe, this person discovered the largest elephant tooth known to a Britain. This person discovered the oldest known hominid tracks (+) in the locality of Laetoli, as well as the Zinjanthropus skull referred to by newspapers as the "Nutcracker Man." (*) For the points, name this British paleoanthropologist whose career was mainly conducted at Olduvai Gorge alongside her husband, Louis. | Mary Leakey (or Mary Douglas Leakey; accept Mary Douglas Nicol; prompt on "Leakey") |
| Near some of the symmetry axes of these objects are Fast Low-Ionization Emission Regions, or FLIERS, which mark the two ends of Messier 27. The "Ghost of Jupiter" (+) and "Dandelion Puffball" are examples of these objects, which form in between the asymptotic giant branch and white dwarf stages. Cat’s Eye (*) is an example of, for the points, what clouds of gas and dust that form in the final stage in a low-mass star's life and are named for resembling objects like Neptune? | Planetary Nebulae (prompt on "Nebula" or "Emission Nebula") |
| An article by Eric J. Paulson explores how a theory with this property explains why a person’s eye movements differ when reading the same text twice. This phenomenon was summarized by Edward Lorenz as “when the present determines the future, (+) but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.” This property was observed by Jacques Hadamard and Martin Gutzwiller with a model made up of (*) billiard balls. For the points, name this phenomenon expressed by the butterfly effect. | Chaos (accept Chaos Theory) |
| These glycoproteins contain a Class I [[One]] fusion protein that mediates cellular entry, which was leveraged to make the monoclonal antibody drug cocktail of bamlanivimab (+) and etesevimab. Cells are reprogrammed to express this protein to trigger an immune response in mRNA vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer. (*) For the points, name these protein complexes that protrude from the viral envelope to give coronaviruses their distinctive shape. | Spike Protein (or S-protein from SARS-CoV-2; or Peplomer Protein) |
| This object was previously referred to as "Xena,” while its moon was initially nicknamed "Gabrielle." That moon, now officially named Dysnomia, (+) is the only moon of this dwarf planet, which was discovered in 2005 by a team led by Caltech professor Michael Brown, who is also the author of the memoir How I Killed (*) Pluto and Why It Had It Coming. For the points, name this dwarf planet named after the Greek goddess of discord. | Eris |
| One of these things reaches 100% frequency in a population during the process of fixation. The letters "p" and "q" represent the frequency of these things under Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, (+) where they remain stable over time. These things separate into different gametes according to Mendel's law of segregation, and they are different from each other at a certain gene in a (*) heterozygous individual. For the points, name these variants of a gene that can be either dominant or recessive. | Alleles (prompt on "Genes" or "Genotypes") |
| The Bonferroni correction avoids mischaracterizing this type of statement when making multiple comparisons. A test's power is the probability of correctly (+) rejecting this statement and avoiding a Type II [[Two]] error. This statement is rejected if a test's p-value is less than the (*) significance level, which is typically five percent. For the points, name this type of hypothesis that assumes there is no relationship between a set of variables, as opposed to the alternative hypothesis. | Null Hypothesis (or H-sub-zero; prompt on "Hypothesis") |
| A 5-fluorinated form of this molecule is commonly used to select for yeast lacking the URA3 gene, as well as as a chemotherapy drug for colorectal cancer. The codon containing three units (+) of this molecule codes for phenylalanine. The demethylation of thymine produces this molecule, which hydrogen-bonds with (*) adenine in a single-stranded nucleic acid. For the points, name this RNA nucleobase symbolized U. | Uracil (accept 5-FU or 5-fluorouracil; prompt on "U" before mentioned; prompt on "Ura") |
| Field-evaporation microscopy is combined with the time-of-flight variety of this technique in an atom probe, a device used to image specific nuclei. A “softer” alternative for creating the samples analyzed in this technique is matrix-assisted (+) laser desorption/ionization, or MALDI. After ionization, samples analyzed in this technique are accelerated with an (*) electric field. For the points, name this technique for finding the mass to charge ratio for a sample of ions. | Mass Spectrometry (or Mass Spec; or MS; prompt on “Spectrometry”) |
| Observations of extreme biodiversity found in the fossil record in one deposit of this rock inspired Stephen Jay Gould’s Wonderful Life. Fossil Ridge is a rocky outcropping (+) around that deposit of this rock, which is famed for preserving soft tissue fossils. The first complete Anomalocaris remains was discovered in the (*) fossil-rich Burgess formation of this rock. For the points, name this type of rock that commonly preserves fossils alongside oil reserves. | Shale (accept Burgess Shale) |
| In 2008, the coral species Isidella tentaculum was found on one of these structures named Rodriguez. The largest of these structures in the Atlantic Ocean is called the Great Meteor, (+) while the Chatham Rise contains 28 of these structures called Graveyard Knolls. A phenomenon called flank collapse is the greatest threat to these structures, whose flat-topped examples are known as (*) guyots. For the points, name these large hills, formed by volcanic activity and are found on the ocean floor. | Seamounts (accept Great Meteor Seamount; accept Graveyard Seamounts; prompt on “Volcanoes” or "Underwater Volcanoes" or “Mountains”) |
| Kasimir Fajans and Oswald Helmuth Göhring discovered one element in this series and called it "brevium" since the half-life of its 234 isotope was only 6.7 hours. This series of elements is characterized by partially filled 5f (+) orbitals. These elements include one named after a scientist who created the first nuclear reactor, as well as another that is mined from the ore (*) pitchblende. For the points, name this series of elements that spans the bottom row of the periodic table, below the lanthanides. | Actinoids (or Actinides; prompt on "Heavy Metals"; prompt on "Radioactive Elements") |
| Lamé's Theorem is the result of an analysis of an algorithm named for this man. Though not Isaac Newton, this man postulated the indefinite divergence (+) from the eye of rays that are rectilinear in a work on Optics. A means of finding the greatest common divisor is often named for this man, who lived in ancient (*) Alexandria. For the points, name this author of Elements who is often seen as the "father of geometry." | Euclid |
| Transport to this organelle is blocked by the antiviral molecule Brefeldin A. This organelle is the site of O-linked, but not N-linked, glycosylation. Proteins bound for the lysosome are tagged with mannose-6-phosphate (+) in this organelle, which contains both a cis and a trans face, as well as flattened disks called cisternae. Proteins that are produced in the endoplasmic reticulum are (*) packaged into vesicles in, for the points, what organelle named for an Italian scientist? | Golgi Apparatus (accept Golgi Complex; accept Golgi Body; accept the Golgi) |
| A printer from Leuven first published this man's work Two New Sciences. Simplicio is among the characters in the Dialogue Concerning the (+) Two Chief World Systems by this man, whom Vincenzo Maculani was the inquisitor for in a set of proceedings. Io and Europa are among a set of satellites named for this man, who stood (*) trial in Italy in 1610. For the points, name this Italian astronomer who discovered a series of moons around Jupiter. | Galileo Galilei (accept either underlined portion; or Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei) |
| LECA was initially used when the "semi-" variety of this practice was done on orchids in the 1990s. A set of early experiments in this practice conducted by John Woodward (+) were done using spearmint. Arabidopsis thaliana is often a subject of this practice which, commercially, is often used to grow tomatoes. In this technique, soil is replaced with (*) mineral nutrient solutions containing an aqueous compound. For the points, name this water-based technique of growing plants. | Hydroponics (prompt on "Hydroculture"; accept Semi-Hydroponics; accept passive Hydroponics; prompt on “Horticulture” or “Agriculture”) |
| The Sargasso Sea takes its name from beds made from large members of this class. Floating members of this class often utilize gas bubbles in pneumatocysts. (+) This class gets its namesake color from fucoxanthin pigments, which distinguishes them from their yellow-green counterparts. Ecosystems defined by the presence of large examples of this class include (*) underwater forests. For the points, name this class of algae that makes up kelp forests. | Brown Algae (or Phaeophyceae; prompt on “Kelp” or “Algae” or “Seaweed” or “Macroalgae”) |