Q 01/05

Cobalt's name is traditionally traced to a German word for which mischievous creature of mining folklore?

A) Dragon

B) Witch

C) Goblin

D) Giant

Answer · why

C) Goblin

Goblin, or Kobold in German, was the miners' culprit for ore that looked rich yet gave up no silver and released poisonous fumes in the furnace.

Q 02/05

Which essential nutrient, found in meat, eggs and dairy, is built around a single atom of cobalt?

A) Vitamin B12

B) Vitamin D

C) Folic acid

D) Beta-carotene

Answer · why

A) Vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 is the only vitamin that contains a metal atom. Only bacteria and archaea can make it, so every animal depends on microbes for its supply.

Q 03/05

Which central African country mines well over half of the world's cobalt, mostly in its Katanga copper region?

A) Zambia

B) DR Congo

C) Angola

D) Tanzania

Answer · why

B) DR Congo

DR Congo dominates the metal so thoroughly that a 2018 investment report likened it to the Saudi Arabia of the electric vehicle age.

Q 04/05

In the 1960s, cobalt salts added to which drink to steady its foam caused serious heart disease in heavy drinkers?

A) Cola

B) Cider

C) Seltzer

D) Beer

Answer · why

D) Beer

Beer drinker's cardiomyopathy was the name doctors gave the new illness after it struck heavy drinkers in Canada in 1966.

Q 05/05

Which 1964 Stanley Kubrick satire features a Soviet doomsday machine built from cobalt-laced nuclear bombs?

A) Paths of Glory

B) Dr. Strangelove

C) A Clockwork Orange

D) Full Metal Jacket

Answer · why

B) Dr. Strangelove

Dr. Strangelove calls its doomsday material Cobalt-Thorium G, borrowing a real 1950 thought experiment about a bomb designed to spread deadly fallout.