Question 1

How many bones are there in the adult human body?

Accepted Answer

206. Adults have 206 bones, but babies are born with about 270. Many fuse together during childhood, especially in the skull and spine.

Question 2

What is the largest organ of the human body?

Accepted Answer

The skin. The skin covers around 1.5 to 2 square meters and weighs roughly 16 percent of body mass. It is the bodys main barrier against infection and dehydration.

Question 3

Which organ produces the hormone insulin?

Accepted Answer

The pancreas. Insulin is produced by beta cells in the islets of Langerhans inside the pancreas. It regulates blood sugar by helping cells absorb glucose.

Question 4

What does DNA stand for?

Accepted Answer

Deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA carries the genetic instructions for nearly all known living organisms. Its double-helix structure was famously described by Watson and Crick in 1953.

Question 5

Which process do plants use to convert sunlight into chemical energy?

Accepted Answer

Photosynthesis. Photosynthesis uses chlorophyll in plant cells to turn carbon dioxide and water into glucose and oxygen. Almost all life on Earth depends on it.

Question 6

Roughly how many cells are there in the adult human body?

Accepted Answer

About 37 trillion (3.7 x 10^13). A 2013 study estimated around 37.2 trillion cells in an average adult. Red blood cells alone account for about 25 trillion of them.

Question 7

What is the longest bone in the human body?

Accepted Answer

The femur (thigh bone). The femur runs from the hip to the knee and can support around 30 times the weight of an adult. It is also one of the strongest bones in the body.

Question 8

How many chambers does a healthy adult human heart have?

Accepted Answer

Four. The heart has two atria on top and two ventricles below. The right side pumps blood to the lungs, and the left side pumps oxygen-rich blood to the body.

Question 9

How many elements are currently recognized on the periodic table?

Accepted Answer

118. The official periodic table contains 118 elements, the most recent (oganesson, tennessine, moscovium and nihonium) confirmed in 2016.

Question 10

What is the chemical symbol for gold?

Accepted Answer

Au. The symbol Au comes from the Latin word aurum, meaning shining dawn. Gold is so chemically unreactive that it is found in pure form in nature.

Question 11

Which element is the most abundant in the universe?

Accepted Answer

Hydrogen. Hydrogen makes up about 75 percent of the normal matter in the universe by mass. It is the main fuel for stars including the Sun.

Question 12

What is the chemical formula for common table salt?

Accepted Answer

NaCl. Table salt is sodium chloride. Each molecule contains one sodium atom and one chlorine atom held together in a crystal lattice.

Question 13

What is the chemical formula for water?

Accepted Answer

H2O. A water molecule contains two hydrogen atoms bonded to one oxygen atom. The bent shape gives water its distinctive properties as a solvent.

Question 14

What does the pH scale measure?

Accepted Answer

Acidity (and alkalinity) of a solution. The pH scale runs from 0 to 14. Values below 7 are acidic, 7 is neutral (like pure water), and values above 7 are basic or alkaline.

Question 15

Which Russian chemist is credited with creating the modern periodic table in 1869?

Accepted Answer

Dmitri Mendeleev. Mendeleev arranged elements by atomic weight and left gaps for elements he predicted but that had not yet been discovered. Several of his predictions later proved correct.

Question 16

What name is given to the chemically inert elements in group 18 of the periodic table?

Accepted Answer

The noble gases. The noble gases (helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, radon and oganesson) are extremely unreactive because their outer electron shells are full.

Question 17

What is the speed of light in a vacuum (to three significant figures)?

Accepted Answer

About 300,000 km/s (299,792 km/s). Light travels at 299,792,458 meters per second in a vacuum. Nothing with mass can reach or exceed this speed, according to Einsteins theory of relativity.

Question 18

Approximately how fast does sound travel through air at sea level?

Accepted Answer

About 343 meters per second (767 mph). The speed of sound in dry air at 20 degrees Celsius is roughly 343 m/s. It is much faster in water and faster still in solids like steel.

Question 19

Which planet in our Solar System is famous for its prominent ring system?

Accepted Answer

Saturn. Saturns rings are made mostly of water ice and stretch over 280,000 kilometers wide. All four gas giants have rings, but Saturns are by far the most visible.

Question 20

Which scientist developed the universal law of gravitation in the 17th century?

Accepted Answer

Sir Isaac Newton. Newton published his law of universal gravitation in 1687 in the Principia Mathematica. The famous falling apple story may be embellished but is rooted in his own recollection.

Question 21

Which planet currently holds the record for the most known moons in our Solar System?

Accepted Answer

Saturn. In 2023 astronomers confirmed enough new moons to push Saturns total past 140, overtaking Jupiter. The exact tally keeps shifting as small moons are reclassified.

Question 22

What are the two main gases that make up the Sun?

Accepted Answer

Hydrogen and helium. The Sun is about 73 percent hydrogen and 25 percent helium by mass. Hydrogen is fused into helium in its core, releasing the energy that powers it.

Question 23

In which year was Pluto reclassified from a planet to a dwarf planet?

Accepted Answer

2006. In August 2006, the International Astronomical Union adopted a new definition of planet that Pluto did not meet. It became the first member of the dwarf planet category.

Question 24

Why does Mars appear red in the night sky?

Accepted Answer

Iron oxide (rust) on its surface. Iron-rich minerals on the Martian surface have oxidized over billions of years, coating much of the planet in reddish rust-like dust.

Question 25

Which gas makes up roughly 78 percent of Earths atmosphere?

Accepted Answer

Nitrogen. Earths atmosphere is about 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen and roughly 1 percent argon, carbon dioxide and other trace gases.

Question 26

What name is given to the large slabs of Earths outer shell that drift over the mantle?

Accepted Answer

Tectonic plates. Earths lithosphere is broken into around 15 major tectonic plates. Their slow movement causes earthquakes, volcanoes and the formation of mountain ranges.

Question 27

Which mineral has a hardness of 10, the highest score on the Mohs scale?

Accepted Answer

Diamond. The Mohs scale ranks mineral hardness from 1 (talc) to 10 (diamond). Diamond is the hardest known naturally occurring material and can scratch every other mineral.

Question 28

Igneous, sedimentary and what other type make up the three main classes of rock?

Accepted Answer

Metamorphic. Metamorphic rocks form when existing rocks are transformed by heat and pressure. Marble and slate are common examples.

Question 29

In order from outside to inside, what are the main layers of the Earth?

Accepted Answer

Crust, mantle, outer core, inner core. The crust is thin and solid, the mantle is hot and slowly flowing rock, the outer core is liquid iron and nickel, and the inner core is solid metal under huge pressure.

Question 30

What is the name given to the ancient supercontinent that existed around 300 million years ago?

Accepted Answer

Pangaea. Pangaea was a single landmass that began breaking apart roughly 200 million years ago. Continental drift gradually moved its fragments into the continents we know today.

Question 31

Most coal, oil and natural gas were formed from what kind of ancient material?

Accepted Answer

Ancient plants and microorganisms. Fossil fuels formed when buried organic matter was subjected to heat and pressure over millions of years. Coal comes mainly from plants and oil and gas mainly from marine organisms.

Question 32

What is the name of the boundary in the Pacific Ocean where many earthquakes and volcanoes occur?

Accepted Answer

The Ring of Fire. The Pacific Ring of Fire is a roughly 40,000 kilometer horseshoe of tectonic plate boundaries. About 75 percent of the worlds active volcanoes lie along it.

Question 33

Which physicist proposed the famous equation E = mc^2?

Accepted Answer

Albert Einstein. Einstein published his special theory of relativity in 1905. The equation states that mass and energy are interchangeable, a principle that underlies nuclear physics.

Question 34

Which scientist coined the term radioactivity and won two Nobel Prizes in different sciences?

Accepted Answer

Marie Curie. Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911. She remains the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.

Question 35

Which English naturalist proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection?

Accepted Answer

Charles Darwin. Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, drawing on observations from his five-year voyage on HMS Beagle. The book transformed biology.

Question 36

Which scientist formulated the three laws of motion?

Accepted Answer

Sir Isaac Newton. Newtons three laws of motion, published in 1687, describe how forces affect motion. They formed the foundation of classical mechanics for over two centuries.

Question 37

Which inventor and rival of Thomas Edison championed alternating current (AC) electricity?

Accepted Answer

Nikola Tesla. Tesla worked with George Westinghouse to develop AC power distribution, which won the so-called War of the Currents against Edisons direct current (DC) system in the 1890s.

Question 38

Which two scientists are credited with describing the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953?

Accepted Answer

James Watson and Francis Crick. Watson and Crick built on the X-ray diffraction work of Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins. Watson, Crick and Wilkins shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Question 39

Which British theoretical physicist wrote A Brief History of Time and studied black holes?

Accepted Answer

Stephen Hawking. Hawking discovered that black holes can emit radiation, now called Hawking radiation. A Brief History of Time, published in 1988, sold more than 10 million copies.

Question 40

Which Italian astronomer first used a telescope to observe the moons of Jupiter in 1610?

Accepted Answer

Galileo Galilei. Galileo observed four large moons of Jupiter (now called the Galilean moons) and discovered the phases of Venus, supporting the heliocentric model of the Solar System.

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