1 This year saw the first direct detection of gravitational waves, a phenomenon predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago. To reduce the chance of false alarms, two separate detectors were involved in the discovery. Where are they located?
a. Massachusetts and California
b. Washington and Louisiana
c. Switzerland and Japan
d. Texas and the International Space Station
Answer: b.
2 Canada is a partner in the OSIRIS-REx mission, launched in September, that aims to retrieve a sample from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. What element is Bennu particularly rich in?
a. carbon
b. dilithium
c. sulphur
d. iron
Answer: a.
3 This year, astronomers reported the discovery of a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to our Sun. About how long would it take the fastest spacecraft ever launched to get there?
a. 90 years
b. 900 years
c. 9,000 years
d. 90,000 years
Answer: d.
4 What do Tennessee, Japan and Moscow have in common?
a. They are where this year’s three Nobel prize winners in physics come from.
b. They are the only places on Earth where you can find a molten salt nuclear reactor.
c. They all had new elements in the periodic table named after them.
d. They all voted for Trump.
Answer: c.
5 What did scientists discover this year in a mine beneath Timmins, Ont.?
a. samples of the oldest known piece of Earth’s crust
b. traces of the giant asteroid impact that formed Hudson Bay
c. Twainite, a zinc-based mineral named after Shania Twain
d. signs that water in the mine may support life long cut off from the surface
Answer: d.
6 Which province or territory in Canada holds the record for the highest number of reported deaths due to earthquake?
a. British Columbia
b. Newfoundland
c. Northwest Territories
d. Quebec
Answer: b.
7 What class of chemicals did more than 100 countries agree to limit this year in an effort to curb the rate of global warming?
a. HFCs
b. PACs
c. THCs
d. anything that ends in C
Answer: a.
8 By how much has human-caused climate change increased the amount of land affected by wildfires in the Western U.S. over the past 30 years, according to a recent University of Idaho study?
a. 40%
b. 60%
c. 80%
d. 100%
Answer: d.
9 Mistaken Point, Nfld., was designated a World Heritage site in 2016. What is this location’s claim to fame?
a. gushues (stone cairns left by Vikings)
b. fern-like fossils of the earliest animal life
c. golden ferns that curl up when disturbed
d. home of gold-medal winning curler Brad Gushue
Answer: b.
10 According to a theory advanced by a team of Canadian paleontologists this year, what evolutionary innovation helped birds survive the mass extinction event that killed off their dinosaur cousins 66 million years ago?
a. beaks for crunching seeds
b. feathers for warmth and flight
c. superior vision for hunting insects
d. eggs shells with calcium for greater strength
Answer: a.
11 How much of the coral that makes up the world’s largest atoll did scientists find dead when they visited earlier this year?
a. 40%
b. 60%
c. 80%
d. 100%
Answer: c.
12 What are Danley Bay, the Scott Islands and St. Anns Bank?
a. points along the Northwest Passage that were ice free year-round for the first time in 2016
b. marine areas that the federal government recently designated for protected status
c. places where Shell has voluntarily surrendered its offshore drilling permits
d. filming locations for a CBC relaunch of The Beachcombers
Answer: b.
13 In which country this year did regulatory overseers allow scientists to edit genes in human embryos?
a. China
b. Italy
c. Britain
d. United States
Answer: c.
14 Japanese scientist Yoshinori Ohsumi won the 2016 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for discovering autophagy. What is it?
a. the process by which cells recycle old and unneeded parts
b. the process by which the body’s white cells are harnessed to fight cancer
c. the process by which ingesting bacteria from soil helps immunize the body
d. the process by which Volkswagen settles its lawsuits
Answer: a.
15 In which Canadian location was Aedes aegypti, the species of mosquito that transmits the Zika virus, sighted in 2016?
a. Port Colborne, Ont.
b. Windsor, Ont.
c. Winnipeg
d. Canada’s embassy in Washington, D.C.
Answer: b.
16 What popular practice was found to be ineffective by a team of Rutgers University microbiologists this year?
a. starving a cold, feeding a fever
b. hand washing to reduce the chance of infection
c. wearing a surgical mask on the subway to avoid the flu
d. employing the five-second rule for food that falls on the floor
Answer: d.
17 This year, University of California researchers released a detailed neural map showing where the meanings of words reside in the brain. To create the map, what did their research subjects have to do as their brains were being scanned?
a. read the dictionary out loud
b. read Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham
c. listen to people telling stories
d. listen to campaign speeches
Answer: c.
18 What neurological theory was challenged by the results of a large-scale clinical trial made public this year?
a. that Alzheimer’s disease is caused by amyloid proteins
b. that mad-cow disease is caused by prions
c. that eating fish boosts intelligence
d. that television causes ADHD
Answer: a.
19 What feat did an artificially intelligent computer achieve for the first time this year?
a. acquired more than one million followers on Twitter
b. beat the reigning world champion at the game of Go
c. correctly predicted the path of a hurricane
d. drove a car on Germany’s autobahn
Answer: b.
20 The serious study of what phenomenon earned a group of University of Waterloo researchers a semi-serious Ig Nobel award this year?
a. beard-growing
b. beer-brewing
c. binge-watching
d. bullshit
Answer: d.
How well did you do?
Answer all of the questions to see your result
Genius level! Whatever they’re paying you, it’s not enough.
Good work. You can probably explain quantum computing as well as Canada’s Prime Minister.
Time to geek up and try again! A few more episodes of The Big Bang Theory will help.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this quiz gave an incorrect answer for question 8. This version has been corrected.
Follow Ivan Semeniuk on Twitter: @IvanSemeniuk
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