Q 01/05

Mr. Yuk, a green grimacing face, was put on US poison labels because children linked the skull and crossbones to what?

A) Pirates

B) Halloween

C) Cartoons

D) Sailors

Answer · why

A) Pirates

Pirates made the skull and crossbones look like fun to children, US poison-control groups feared, so the green, tongue-out Mr. Yuk was adopted for poi...

Q 02/05

The three chasing arrows of the recycling symbol, drawn by 23-year-old student Gary Anderson, trace what shape?

A) A Klein bottle

B) A Möbius strip

C) A trefoil knot

D) A figure eight

Answer · why

B) A Möbius strip

A Möbius strip is what the arrows fold into; Anderson's entry won a 1970 contest run by the Container Corporation of America to mark the first Earth D...

Q 03/05

Why did the 1906 International Radiotelegraph Convention choose SOS as the distress call?

A) Short for 'save our souls'

B) Short for 'save our ship'

C) A distinctive Morse sequence

D) Initials of a German ship

Answer · why

C) A distinctive Morse sequence

A distinctive Morse sequence is all it was; 'save our souls' and 'save our ship' were backronyms invented later, after the code had first appeared in ...

Q 04/05

The two parallel lines through the euro sign, unveiled by the European Commission in 1996, officially signify what?

A) Unity

B) Prosperity

C) Security

D) Stability

Answer · why

D) Stability

Stability is the official reading of the double bar; Arthur Eisenmenger, once the EEC's chief graphic designer, claims he had the idea 25 years before...

Q 05/05

Which Swedish naturalist first used the Mars and Venus symbols to mark male and female flowers, in 1751?

A) Carl Linnaeus

B) Anders Celsius

C) Jöns Jacob Berzelius

D) Olof Rudbeck

Answer · why

A) Carl Linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus, sorting flowers by their stamens and pistils, was first to press the astronomers' planet signs into service for the sexes, and biology ...