Finals of the SciBizTech quiz in Eclectiza, Thapar University, Patiala on 18th February 2018.

1. Eclectiza SciBizTech finals

2. Special Thanks to Abhimanyu Bhadauria for
effective guinea pigging.

3. Written round - 1
• 5 points per answer
• One attempt per team for the theme, get points as on screen
accordingly.

4. +15/-10
• If the fish of the Uranoscopidae family gets the moniker of the
“mother-in-law” fish, due to it being ambush predators that can
deliver both electric shocks and venom, an anatomical peculiarity of
having eyes on the top of it’s head gives it what more common name,
a term reserved for amateur astronomers, which incidentally is also
shared with a Dream Theater song’s name?

5. +12.5/7.5
• BoJack Horseman fans may remember this animal as the character
Yolanda Buenaventura, introduced in Season 4.
• Fans of the Science Fiction classic titled Dune will remember that this
animal shares its name with the Tlielaxu _______ tanks, “ a device for
reproducing a living human being from the cells of a cadaver“,
possibly due to the animal’s own highly-advanced regenerative
capabilities.
• What animal is this, whose name may fetch a significant score of 64
scrabble score if placed right?

6. +10/-5
• What we normally expect plants of this type,
about how they obtain their nitrogen-rich
nutrients, is actually performed by the
immature plants of Nepenthes Iowii, which
happen to grow on the ground.
• The mature plants however, grow high above
on the branches of trees, and instead have
evolved to get their nitrogen fix due to the
‘byproduct’ of a symbiotic relationship with
the tree shrew, wherein the tree shrew is
given nectar as shown below and the shrew
‘gives‘ something in return, by performing an
action while perched as shown, to eat the
nectar.
• What is the common name of this plant type?
• What does this plant consume for it’s
nitrogen fix?

7. +5/-2.5
• Shown here are the Arabian
Jasmine and the Moon flower,
the National Flower and the
Flower of Charm, the two
flowers of national importance
in Indonesia.
• What third flower completes the
list of Indonesia’s floral
emblems, which is known as
Padma Raksasa in the native
language?

8. +2.5/0
• Apparently in the order of their
abundance in nature, if in
Ancient Egypt’s numerical
system, the number 1000 was
depicted by a water lily, 10,000
by a bent finger and a million by
the Egyptian God of
infinity/eternity
(anticlimactically named Heh),
what particular stage of a certain
organism’s development is used
to depict 100000?

9. Exchange Sheets

10. +15/-10
• If the fish of the Uranoscopidae family gets the moniker of the
“mother-in-law” fish, due to it being ambush predators that can
deliver both electric shocks and venom, an anatomical peculiarity of
having eyes on the top of it’s head gives it what more common name,
a term reserved for amateur astronomers, which incidentally is also
shared with a Dream Theater song’s name?

11. Stargazer

12. +12.5/-7.5
• BoJack Horseman fans may remember this animal as the character
Yolanda Buenaventura, introduced in Season 4.
• Fans of the Science Fiction classic titled Dune will remember that this
animal shares its name with the Tlielaxu _______ tanks, “ a device for
reproducing a living human being from the cells of a cadaver“,
possibly due to the animal’s own highly-advanced regenerative
capabilities.
• What animal is this, whose name may fetch a significant score of 64
scrabble score if placed right?

13. Axolotls.

14. +10/-5
• What we normally expect plants of this type,
about how they obtain their nitrogen-rich
nutrients, is actually performed by the
immature plants of Nepenthes Iowii, which
happen to grow on the ground.
• The mature plants however, grow high above
on the branches of trees, and instead have
evolved to get their nitrogen fix due to the
‘byproduct’ of a symbiotic relationship with
the tree shrew, wherein the tree shrew is
given nectar as shown below and the shrew
gives something in return, by performing an
action while perched as shown, to eat the
nectar.
• What is the common name of this plant type?
• What does this plant consume for it’s
nitrogen fix?

15. Pitcher plant, that consumes the shrew’s
feces.

16. +5/-2.5
• Shown here are the Arabian
Jasmine and the Moon flower,
the National Flower and the
Flower of Charm, the two
flowers of national importance
in Indonesia.
• What third flower completes the
list of Indonesia’s floral
emblems, which is known as
Padma Raksasa in the native
language?

17. Rafflesia flower

18. +2.5/0
• Apparently in the order of their
abundance in nature, if in
Ancient Egypt’s numerical
system, the number 1000 was
depicted by a water lily, 10,000
by a bent finger and a million by
the Egyptian God of
infinity/eternity
(anticlimactically named Heh),
what stage of development of a
particular organism is used to
depict 100000?

19. Tadpoles.

20. All of these are inspirations for various Pokemon

21. • 17 questions, clockwise
• +10, -5 on pounce
• +10, -10 on bounce.

22. 1.
• The De Beers diamond has had an
interesting history. Found shortly after
the company was formed, it was sold
to this person, who employed Cartier
to make an accessory to this diamond
with 2,936 other, smaller diamonds.
• The accessory disappeared in 1948
but the diamond resurfaced in a
Sotheby’s auction in Geneva, 1982.
• In 1998, Cartier fished the rest of the
accessory and refit the necklace with
zirconium and synthetic diamonds and
added a replica of the De Beers.
• What is this accessory? Who had it
made?

24. Raja Bhupinder Singh’s Patiala Necklace

25. • Given that they aim to aid in making
their surrounding environment
greener, by manufacturing seed
bombs to be bought and thrown onto
the ground as a form of guerrilla
gardening, identify the appropriately
punny name of this Kickstarter project
by Commonstudio.
• What object, nowadays rarely seen
and considered vintage, was
repurposed to dispense these
seedbombs in exchange for money to
support this venture?

27. • Greenaid,
Gumball machines

28. 3.
• Many features of this factory in the
town of Lingotto in Turin were
rather unique for it’s time. For
starters, it had a unique
manufacturing concept where the
product goes up a floor upon
completing a stage of production.
But the most unique design feature
was what was placed on the
building’s rooftop.
• What was on the rooftop?
• Which company’s factory was this?

31. • Fiat, and a racetrack to test their
cars.

32. 4.
• The X orbit refers to an orbit around the earth where few or no satellites
are in the vicinity, where old decommissioned satellites are supposed to re-
orbit to after their period of operation. This typically lies between 235 to
300km depending on the space agency defining the same.
• The spacecraft Y is a place on the ocean about 4000 km southeast of New
Zealand, where defunct spacecraft and, notably, the Mir space station, are
deposited. The spot was chosen so as to not endanger human or oceanic
life, and thus coincides with the Point of least accessibility.
• Given the alternate name for the point of least accessibility, why is it
appropriate that the most well-documented planned destructive re-entry
was that of ESA’s unmanned resupply spacecraft—the Automated Transfer
Vehicle Jules Verne/ What is the alternate name of the Point of Least
Accessibility?

34. • Graveyard orbit, spacecraft cemetery, and Point Nemo

35. 5.
• Berger and Milkman, marketing professors from Wharton and Upenn,
found that two features predictably determined an article’s success: how
positive its message was and how much it excited its reader. Articles that
evoked some emotion did better than those that evoked none—an article
with the headline “BABY POLAR BEAR’S FEEDER DIES” did better than “TEAMS
PREPARE FOR THE COURTSHIP OF LEBRON JAMES.” But happy emotions (“WIDE-EYED
NEW ARRIVALS FALLING IN LOVE WITH THE CITY”) outperformed sad ones (“WEB
RUMORS TIED TO KOREAN ACTRESS’S SUICIDE”).
• These findings proved to be immensely useful for social media sites like
Twitter and Facebook, and this study is said to have influenced what
particular design choice of a feature rolled out by Facebook on the 24th of
February, 2016?

37. Why there are more positive than negative
reactions

38. 6.
• Seen here is a peculiarly
arranged farm, which has one
sector cordoned off for growing
wheat, another for growing
tomatoes, and to the far end,
you can see a cowshed and a
pigsty.
• What are such farms called, and
what are the two reasons why
they are called so?

41. Pizza farms!

42. 7.
• A study by Dutch medical
researchers in 2006 revealed
several discrepancies, such as
the fact that the flexor
compartment originates at the
lateral epicondyle, when it is, in
fact, the medial epicondyle.
These revelations sought to cast
doubts on whose teachings from
the 17th century?

45. The anatomy lesson of Dr. Nicholaes Tulp, by
Van der meer.

46. 8.
• Usually, typing “man”
on the terminal of a
Unix-based system
returns the requested
page from the Unix
manual, but as an
easter egg, it outputs
three identical words
after midnight. What
are they? This feature
was later removed due
to this very
stackoverflow post.

49. 9.
• Unlike usual plants that have
leaves facing perpendicular to
sunlight, the leaves of
Marcgravia evenia instead have
a parabolic shape as seen in this
picture.
• This is shown to attract a certain
animal that would help in the
pollination of the plant.
• What animal, and how?

52. Bats, their shape aids the bats in echolocation

53. 10.
• The X effect was coined by Michael I.
Norton of Harvard Business School,
Daniel Mochon of Yale, and Dan Ariely of
Duke, who say that “labor alone can be
sufficient to induce greater liking for the
fruits of one’s labor.”, which, they say,
helps explain the success of this brand X.
• ID the brand, in news in the last month.
(5)
• According to an urban legend, what
modification was made to the instant
cake mix by Betty Crocker that
supposedly helped sales due to the very
effect demonstrated above? (The real
reason was simply because it made better
cakes).

55. • The Ikea effect, and Betty
Crocker, instead of selling
readymade cake mixes, asked to
add an egg apparently to give
the bakers a feeling of
accomplishment.

56. 11.
• The company which began as “Children’s Supermart” changed its
name to what we know it as now, when Charles Lazarus could not fit
that name into the sign in a branch in Rockville, Maryland. The name
thus is a reference to his own, and the fact that the branch was where
the name was changed.
• LifeGem is one of many companies that offer to help remember your
dearly departed, by turning your ashes into these objects.
• The above two answers combine to form the name of which shell
company that is in the news for all the wrong reasons?

58. • Toys R Us + Diamonds = Diamonds R Us, one of three Shell companies
that approached PNB for a credit loan.

59. 12.
• This movie revolved around stealing
thousands of dollars of banknotes that were
due to be destroyed, a fictional account of the
Bank of England’s Loughton incineration
heists.
• If such a heist were successful, such notes
that the bank deemed worthless and fit for
incineration are back in circulation, therefore
slightly lowering the value of all the other
cash of the country in circulation.
• This situation’s exact opposite is why
sometime before 1993, all Americans owning
cash became about 2 million dollars richer,
proportionally. What had happened one cold
night in the mountains surrounding a certain
South American town?

61. • Pablo Escobar allegedly burnt US
dollars to keep his daughter
warm.

62. 13.
• Hailed as the first “feminist” Tinder,
Identify this app from its rather
evocative logo (5).
• In March 2017, the company
announced it planned to launch a
career networking app, Titled with
a four-letter suffix to their app
name. What is the name, given the
name and the fact that networking
involves communication between
people?

64. Bumble, Bumble Bizz

65. 14.
• Back in November 2016, this
specific tartan design was
registered in the Scottish Register
of Tartans, as one intended to be
worn upon X science’s outreach
activities. The colour scheme of
Red, Green and Blue also mirrors
the most widely recognized version
of the Flag of X, itself inspired by
the X trilogy, a critically acclaimed
series of hard science fiction
novels.
• What is X?

67. Mars exploration

68. 15.
• What served as the inspiration to the
illustration of the Facebook Titan in
the Economist’s January issue?

70. Saturn Devouring his son by Goya

71. 16.
• A low-cost robot with four limbs
that comes with a bucket attached
to a spider web-like extension, this
robot comes with a screen, a
camera, WiFi and Bluetooth.
• Developed by Genrobotics, this
robot will help eradicate which
unfortunate social evil present in
India, and has begun trials in
Kerala? (5)
• What is the name (a word with
indian origins) given to this robot,
probably inspired by the places it
scurries into?

73. • The Bandicoot helps in sewer
cleaning, therefore replacing
manual/human scavengers.

74. 17.
• Richard Turere of Nairobi, then a twelve
year old child, was tasked to prevent lions
from the nearby forest reserve from
attacking his cattle at night. Short of
killing the lion, he tried many things; a
scarecrow, and a bonfire, but none of
them seemed to work.
• But one night he was doing something,
which made him realise that his actions
stopped the lions from coming in that
night. Inspired by this, he built this setup
shown in the right.
• How does the lion lights work/ What
deters the lions from coming in that the
lights seek to emulate?

76. • The are supposed to look like
someone patrolling with a torch.

77. Now for a fun list-it.
• 2-(4-{2-[3,5-Bis(pent-1-yn-1-
yl)phenyl]ethynyl}-2,5-bis(3,3-
dimethylbut-1-yn-1-yl)phenyl)-1,3-
dioxolane has an objectively more
fun name: A NanoPutian.
• It also has an objectively fun
purpose; to teach children
chemistry in a way that is most fun.
• The following shows 5 derivatives
of the Nanoputian molecule,
formed by an acetal exchange. ID
them all.

78. • Nano_______(7), pioneers of USA’s history.
• Nano_____(5), headgear associated with Frenchmen. The
cap of a certain colour is associated with the military.
• Nano_______(7),
• Nano_______(7), some of you might aspire to be one
• Nano_____(5), a demonym you might associate most
strongly with these hats

79. • Exchange sheets

80. • NanoPilgrim, NanoBeret, NanoMonarch, NanoScholar, NanoTexan

81. And for another list it. +5 points only for the
punny titles.
• In an article on The Economist's "Johnson" blog (Oct 28th 2010), Gideon Lichfield has
tracked a long string of bad puns based on the Chinese unit of currency of the Yuan. The
titles were inspired by:
1. The first three words of an pioneering, out of this world line
2. The oft-repeated introduction to a 1996 song, “Wannabe” from the Spice Girls
3. An English phrase with its origins in horse racing: Sometimes a horse is withdrawn
from a race after bettors have already placed money on it; those bettors did not get a
___ ___ _____ _____.
4. A Latin Phrase, Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno, which happens to be Switzerland’s
official motto, and the motto of the Three Musketeers
5. AKA card stacking, stacking the deck, ignoring the counterevidence, slanting, and
suppressed evidence, an informal fallacy that occurs when only the reasons supporting
a proposition are supplied, while all reasons opposing it are omitted.

82. Exchange sheets

83. • Yuan small step
• tell me what yuan what you really really yuan
• yuan for their money
• yuan for all and all for one
• yuan-sided argument

84. • 16 questions, anticlockwise
• +10, -5 on pounce
• +10 on bounce.

85. 18. What is Philip’s advertising?

88. Batteries, without which these battery
operated toys are as boring as socks

89. 19.
• Ian Banks had this to say while describing the 'Outside Context Problem' in Excession:
"The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you
were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you'd tamed the land, invented the wheel or
writing or whatever, the neighbors were cooperative or enslaved but at any rate peaceful
and you were busy raising temples to yourself with all the excess productive capacity you
had, you were in a position of near-absolute power and control which your hallowed
ancestors could hardly have dreamed of and the whole situation was just running along
nicely like a canoe on wet grass... when suddenly this bristling lump of iron appears
sailless and trailing steam in the bay and these guys carrying long funny-looking sticks
come ashore and announce you've just been discovered, you're all subjects of the
Emperor now, he's keen on presents called tax and these bright-eyed holy men would
like a word with your priests.“
Given the above, what videogame series served as an inspiration to the OCP?

91. • Sid Meier’s Civilization series.

92. 20.
• A X goat is a trained goat used in
general animal herding. It is trained
to associate with sheep or cattle,
leading them to a specific
destination. In stockyards, a X goat
will lead sheep to slaughter, while
its own life is spared.
• The phrase also alternatively
describes a goat that is fit with a
tracker and is let loose to find feral
goats which are then eradicated.
What is X?

94. • Judas Goat

95. 21. These are some of the various
projects one can make with this
electronic hobby kit, whose USP is that it
combines paper and flexible electronics
into these things you see here. What is
the appropriately punny name of this
Kickstarter, that has two letters added to
the second word of a phrase we may
have been familiar with as kids?

97. Papier machine

98. 22.
• In 1912, the appearance of these
everyday objects (of size around two
square feet with a 6-inch width) changed
from gray-white to what it is today, due to
the addition of carbon black, a form of
paracrystalline carbon that has a high
surface-area-to-volume ratio.
• Naturally, it was expected that the colour
of this fictional character would change as
well.
• Which it did, albeit briefly; it was reverted
back to its original colour, by citing
aesthetic and printing issues, and not due
to racial concerns as was rumoured.
• What is his most commonly known
moniker?

100. • Bibendum/Michelin Man!

101. 23.
• According to Alan Cooper, the "Father of Visual Basic," the concept of
X was based on a "tragic misunderstanding“ by Microsoft of research
conducted at Stanford University, showing that the same part of the
brain in use while using a mouse or keyboard was also responsible for
emotional reactions while interacting with other human beings and
this is the reason people yell at their computer monitors. But, as
people already related to computers directly as they do with humans,
Microsoft’s oft-criticized addition of X emerged as an annoying
interloper distracting the user from the primary conversation.
• What is X?

104. 24.
• Tokyo’s obsession with neon
lights can be traced back to a
singular moment in history
when a company called Tokyo
Tsushin Kogyo switched on a
giant neon sign nearly 36 feet
wide in the center of the
Ginza district of Japan whilst
nationally-televised.
• What did this neon sign
reveal?

106. Their new name, sony

107. 25.
• In an attempt to “regain it’s
cultural identity”, Bolivia, a
country in the Southern
Hemisphere, has clocks running
anticlockwise from what we’re
used to.
Why did the country adopt this
scheme? Or, why does the
conventional scheme of a clock
face run clockwise?

109. • A conventional clock runs
clockwise because in early
sundials developed primarily in
the northern hemisphere, The
sun’s shadow would run
clockwise.
• Bolivia is in the southern
hemisphere.

110. 26.
• According to article 81 of New York City’s health code, bare hand contact with
food that is “ready to eat” is prohibited.
• An additional clause in article 81 reads: “Except for medical alert bracelets or a
ring that is smooth and without crevices, such as a wedding band, food workers
may not wear jewelry on their arms or hands.”
• When not violating the health code, the food there was panned, being described
as “overcooked”, “mundane”, or “rubbery and low on flavour”. It was accused of
relying on its one USP that was in trouble due to the above two clauses.
• Which restaurant chain’s New York venture is plagued with such problems? How
is the owner more popularly known as?

112. • Nusret Gokce (Salt –bae’s ) Nusr-Et

113. 27.
• From the genus Deinopis, Also
known as net-casting spiders or
ogre-faced spiders, Identify the
common name of this spider,
named after an ancient
profession, the retiarius type of
which was also known to use a
net as part of his profession.

115. • Gladiator spider

116. 28.
• One of the most prominent modifications
to the L96A1 Precision Marksman rifle
was that of a milled bolt, which reduces
its surface area, therefore preventing
frost developing on it to some extent.
What the modification was for, was
reflected in the two-word addendum in
it's name. This new improved rifle
abbreviated as X was adopted by The
Swedish & British military services.
• What abbreviation, which (to the best of
my knowledge, some) engineering
students might be strangely familiar with?
• A secondary modification was to its
trigger guard, which was made to be
wider. For what purpose?

118. • Arctic Warfare Precision (AWP),
trigger modification to fit gloved
hands.

119. 29.
• The word X has been used to refer to a particular item of clothing, a sort of long
cassock but often open at the front since at least the 15th century, in the 16th
century becoming used for outer garments of the poor. It was in this sense that
William Shakespeare used the word in The Merchant of Venice.
• The modern use of the term for a fabric rather than a garment dates to Thomas Y,
who invented the fabric & revived the name in 1879, and patented it in 1888. It
has been used with a general meaning of "closely woven cloth" since at least
1904.
• Having invented X, Y then claimed that they had also invented the _____ ____, an
item of clothing that became popular after it’s use in World War 1, and has gone
on to be worn by, as per an old Y ad, “the author, the statesman, the private eye”.
ID X, Y and the two blanks.

121. • Burberry’s Gabardine, now used in Trench coats

122. 30.
• The clients buying these
modified power tools belong to
which religious group?

124. • The Amish who are not
supposed to use modern
technology, often interpreted as
technology powered by
electrical means.
• Pressured air tools aren’t
powered.

125. 31.
• C Paramathma from the Nalgonda district of the present day
Telangana state made a request to the Ministry of Health & Family
Welfare back in 2014 for something to be amended to the Indian
Medical Council regulations. He refers to an incident where a certain
Durgabai pharmacy issued a drug to a pregnant woman called
Misoprost 200, instead of Microgest 200, the latter for helping with
growth of the fetus, and the former for abortion.
• The Andhra Pradesh court then sent it forward to the government,
which notified of an amendment added to ‘Indian Medical Council
(Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002’.
• What amendment?

127. • Doctors must write prescription in legible writing.

128. 32.
• Usually, Libraries lending e-books from publishers out to people have
their DRM enabled, which lets a library member borrow the e-book
for two weeks on their device, after which the e-book expires and the
user can re-issue it or the library can issue it to someone else.
• In March 2011, HarperCollins announced it would distribute eBooks
to libraries with DRM enabled to delete the item after being lent 26
times, which was met with heavy criticism from libraries and users
alike.
• What was HarperCollin’s defence on this arbitrary limit to the number
of lendings till the ebook self-destructs, a move possibly inspired by
their experience in print media?

130. • Their research suggested that books often wear out in an average of
26 reissues.

131. 33.
• In this country, this geographical feature is named after an exiled
mythological figure from a certain religious tradition, that crossed it
in one direction. In its neighbouring country, it is named after a
different but similarly exiled mythological figure, of a different
religious tradition, that crossed it in the other direction.
• What geographical entity? What two exiled mythological figures?

133. • RamSethu, Adam’s bridge.

134. Thank you