Q 01/05

Which gas, also behind the stink of rotten eggs, is a leading source of the smell of human farts?

A) Sulfur dioxide

B) Hydrogen chloride

C) Hydrogen sulfide

D) Carbon monoxide

Answer · why

C) Hydrogen sulfide

Hydrogen sulfide and other sulfur compounds make up less than 1% of a fart's volume. Methane, so often blamed, has no smell at all.

Q 02/05

Which American founding father wrote a mock-serious essay urging scientists to make farts smell like perfume?

A) Benjamin Franklin

B) Thomas Jefferson

C) Alexander Hamilton

D) John Adams

Answer · why

A) Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin wrote it around 1781 while serving as ambassador to France, to mock a call for papers from the Royal Academy of Brussels. He never a...

Q 03/05

Most of the methane released by cattle leaves their bodies in which way, despite all the jokes about cows?

A) Farting

B) Burping

C) Sweating

D) Urinating

Answer · why

B) Burping

Burping and breathing out account for 90–95% of the methane livestock release. Feed supplements such as seaweed and oregano have been proposed to cut ...

Q 04/05

Which prank toy did novelty mogul Samuel Adams turn down as indelicate before a rival made it a hit?

A) Joy buzzer

B) Stink bomb

C) Squirting flower

D) Whoopee cushion

Answer · why

D) Whoopee cushion

The whoopee cushion was devised in the 1930s by workers at Toronto's JEM Rubber Company, playing with scrap rubber. Adams, inventor of the joy buzzer,...

Q 05/05

Which Mel Brooks comedy features Governor William J. Le Petomane and a campfire scene full of noisy flatulence?

A) Young Frankenstein

B) The Producers

C) Blazing Saddles

D) Spaceballs

Answer · why

C) Blazing Saddles

Blazing Saddles named its governor, played by Brooks himself, after a French stage performer famed for farting at will. The campfire scene was among t...