Q 01/05

Why did Thailand's Constitutional Court oust Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej in September?

A) He owned a football club

B) He wrote a newspaper column

C) He hosted TV cooking shows

D) He ran a chain of restaurants

Answer · why

C) He hosted TV cooking shows

He hosted TV cooking shows, 'Tasting and Grumbling' and 'All Set at 6 am', for months after taking office, which the court ruled made him a paid emplo...

Q 02/05

What did timekeepers insert at the end of 2008 so clocks could wait for the Earth's slightly slowing rotation?

A) A leap minute

B) A leap second

C) A leap hour

D) A leap day

Answer · why

B) A leap second

A leap second was inserted at the end of 2008 because the Earth's rotation runs slightly slower than atomic time, so clocks were paused to let the pla...

Q 03/05

Which laptop did Steve Jobs unveil at January's Macworld as the world's thinnest notebook, at 19 mm?

A) MacBook Pro

B) iBook G4

C) PowerBook G4

D) MacBook Air

Answer · why

D) MacBook Air

The MacBook Air beat the previous record holder, Toshiba's 2005 Portégé R200, by less than a millimetre. Jobs introduced it during Apple's keynote on ...

Q 04/05

The 29 firework 'footprints' seen striding over Beijing on TV at the Olympic opening were what?

A) Filmed at a dress rehearsal

B) Largely computer animation

C) Fired from army helicopters

D) Shot from the Great Wall

Answer · why

B) Largely computer animation

Largely computer animation replaced the live shot in the broadcast, although real footprints were fired at one per second, one for each of the 29 mode...

Q 05/05

Which sea creature gave science the glowing protein that won its discoverers the Chemistry Nobel?

A) A firefly squid

B) A sea anemone

C) A glowing plankton

D) A jellyfish

Answer · why

D) A jellyfish

A jellyfish, Aequorea victoria, is the source of green fluorescent protein, first purified by Osamu Shimomura in the 1960s. Shimomura, Chalfie and Tsi...