The prelims for the Science Business and Technology quiz held by RV Quizcorp as a part of Under the Peepal tree 2022.

1. Prelims
𝜳-Biz-Tech
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2. Rules
PRELIMS 24 questions, 24 points
Star (*) Q’s to resolve ties
QM’s decisions are final
No negative marking
Top 8 teams in finals
No googling

3. ID whose grave this is.
Q1

4. FITB
Q2

5. In the 1980s, there was a long running battle between Apple Corps, the
Beatles' recording company and Apple Inc. Steve Jobs won the fight,
however in turn agreed that they'd not trademark works related to
music.
This was a problem for Jim Reekes who was in charge of making alert
tones for MacOS. The alert "chime" was rejected by Apple's legal team as
it directly indicated that it was a work related to music.
Growing frustrated by the legal scrutiny, Jim renamed the tone to
Sosumi. Put funda as to why he named it so.
Q3

6. X is a project by Draper laboratories, it is a cybernetics project that
involves an insect. The insect has been chosen due to its massive
acceleration sometimes reaching 9Gs and its capability to navigate
through tight spots. The project is different from most cybernetics
projects as it controls the insect by using optical electrodes to inject
commands into its genetically modified nervous system.
The insect’s name in Romanian folklore comes from a myth where St.
George wounded and leashed a ______ while on his horse. The devil
cursed his horse, and the horse became a giant flying insect. This is also
why the name of this insect directly translates to to “Devil’s Horse” in
Romanian.
Which insect was used here?
Q4 *

7. Imgur user JJSmooth44 created an animal photo series with some images
shown below. While the images of some species are of extremely high
quality, others barely have any pixels to form a discernible image. Put
funda
Q5

8. Q5

9. Geneticists from the Gulf Specimen Marine
Laboratory in Florida and National Institute on
Aging in Baltimore have proposed that life may
have begun before the Earth was formed. They
acknowledge that their ideas are more of a
“thought experiment”, and that there could be
other possibilities to explain what actually might
have happened.
They, on the basis of X, propose the above, and say
that in this case, the doubling period of genetic
complexity is 376 million years, and that working
backwards, they have extrapolated the beginning
of life to 10 billion years ago, whereas the age of
the Earth is commonly agreed upon to be around
4.5 billion years. ID X.
Q6

10. On 30 March 1881, four X, described as typographical art, were published
in American satirical magazine Puck. These might be earliest usage of
these ever in history. What?
Q7

11. Since 1959, when the St. Lawrence seaway was opened to the great lakes,
at least 85 invasive marine species have been discovered in the great
lakes. Among these, 54 are directly linked to being brought to the lakes
from one particular source.
In order to curb the transport of these invasive species, their ‘mode of
transport’ has been asked to perform certain extra steps before entering
the great lakes since 1993. These steps involves the emptying of ________
into the ocean before entering the great lakes.
What is this ‘mode of transport’?
Q8 *

12. This English phrase refers to an immediate reaction made without
analysing the causes or facts pertaining to an event.
The roots of this phrase is from a phenomenon first recorded by Sir
Michael Foster in his Textbook of Physiology in 1877. The phenomenon
involves the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Lumbar Spinal Nerves.
Name the phrase/phenomenon.
Q9

13. The company that bought X’s
restaurants in Y reopened its first 15
restaurants under a new brand. The
new logo released recently is meant
to reflect what X is known for
selling.
The new owner stated, “We don’t
have the right to use some colors,
we don’t have the right to use the
golden ______, we don’t have the
right to use any mention of X”.
ID X and Y
Q10

14. Based in Minnesota, Josie Lewis started
experimenting with adding different
chemicals to uncured resin. "I used all sorts
of paints and inks and solvents like a science
lab to see what would happen," she says. "At
some point I discovered that when I used
certain inks with resin in a certain sequence,
strange, colorful forms and growths would
develop."
The results are bunch of stunning, one of a
kind, melange of textures, hues providing a
stimulating visual experience. What is
unique about this art/ What is it made in?
Q11

15. Karen Nyberg, creator of novel artistic project titled _____ Views,
with Robert Kaufman Fabrics. This project marries Nyberg’s passion
for both science and art. In addition to her robust mechanical
engineering skill set, Nyberg is also an accomplished artist and
crafter. She made headlines in 2013 when she brought quilting gear
to the ___ and sewed a dinosaur toy for her then-three-year-old son,
who was back home, using scraps and fabrics she found around her.
What is the inspiration for Nyberg’s project?
Q12 *

16. Q12 *

17. X is not a renewable resource, at least not in a time comparable to the
human timescale. After being extracted, it is ludicrously expensive to
recover, due to its nature. There is a reserve to store X in Texas that
pumps it into the ground and stores it 3500 feet under the ground in
porous rocks, that do not let it escape.
The monument on the right, also in Texas was constructed in 1968, to
commemorate the 100th anniversary of the discovery of X. ID X. (Image
in next slide)
Q13

18. Q13

19. In April 2020, NYC mandated the use of a certain type of aesthetics (some
examples are pictured below) to be employed in a certain class of newly
constructed buildings. Put funda.
Q14

20. The new neural network by OpenAI titled ____-_, creates images from text
captions from user input.
What's the name given to it? It's play on the name of a famous Spanish
artist combined with the name of 2008 Pixar movie.
Q15

21. Xenobots were essentially frog stem cells engineered to perform a
specific function. The original demonstration included the functionality
similar to sci-fi nano bots, where they could clump together. Since frog
cells clump together into spheres anyway, there needed to be a design to
get all these spheres together and form a group with them.
An AI model was used to sculpt the shape which could get the cells
together in one body. The model ended up choosing a shape close to the
______ character. The bot would thus move around and shove the other
clump in it’s ‘mouth’, getting all the spheres together.
What shape did the model choose? / FITB.
Q16 *

22. Tobias Geffen was an American Orthodox rabbi. He served as the leader
of Congregation Shearith Israel in Atlanta, Georgia, from 1910 to 1970.
Geffen is more popularly remembered for his service to his community in
another sphere. Geffen was provided with the formula required to make
X (a popular product made by a very famous brand as well), a closely
guarded trade secret, on the condition that he not disclose the formula.
He convinced the company to change few of their ingredients and use
substitutes such as vegetable based glycerin and other sources so that the
product reached a wider population, which was finally successful in 1936.
Explain Geffen's intentions behind modifying X.
Q17

23. Most of the time, when stuff doesn’t work, it’s due to components out of
alignment, such as gears or other mechanical components. Due to
heating and cooling of internal components, delicate items may fall out
of place, and lead to the item not working well. A solution (also used by
NASA during the Apollo 12 mission when one of its cameras stopped
working) named X is applied to repair such devices, and is the most
common answer to most household device issues.
There are a couple of issues with this solution, though. Firstly, most
modern devices are immune to this solution (unfortunately). And
secondly, this is more of a lottery than anything, because it may also lead
to more misalignment of components. The size of the device in question
also matters, as the smaller the device, the less effective this method is.
Put funda.
Q18

24. Yannic Kilcher is a youtuber and ML researcher from ETH, he trained a
NLP (natural language processing, basically an AI that understands
Shakespeare) model from 3 million message board threads from a
popular social media message board. He called this the rudest AI in
existence.
The name of this AI is derived from the fact that it's one iteration above
the state of the art NLP and a tongue in cheek reference to the message
board itself.
Give me the name.
Q19

25. London based fashion entrepreneur Saif Siddiqui's invention ISHU is a
boon for those in the limelight, but hinders the work of a certain
community of people.
ISHU is made of a special fabric that contains thousands of nano
spherical crystals that reflect light. Put funda as to what its purpose is.
Q20 *

26. During the development of everyone’s favourite game in 2014, the game
project was given a codename as “Project Bolan”, as a reference to Marc
Bolan, the lead singer of a famous 70s glam rock band having the same
name as a playable in-game character. The game is neverending, though
it reaches a maximum total of 99,999 points after which it gets reset to 0
again, but the developers said we’d need 17 Million Years to actually hit
99,999 points. Which popular game and character are we talking about?
Q21

27. In the 1870s, J Hagemann, a German immigrant from Australia first
manufactured a well known insecticidal powder and named it after the
combination of two words, the first being the French word for Dead, and
the second being “One” in German, together translating to “The Dead
One”. Which popular brand are we talking about?
Q22

28. Owens and other fluid dynamics experts at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT) think they finally have an answer to a nearly
impossible question. The results of this experiment were surprising, as
Owens and her colleagues fully expected to be able to split this into two
equal halves with some experimental techniques in the lab. To
understand the scientific underpinnings of the iconic product, they used
an instrument known as a rheometer, which twisted the product
between two plates. It turns out there’s not really a trick to it,” Owens
tells Popular Science, “Everything you try to do will get mostly a clean
break. It’s a bit disappointing that there’s not some secret twist.” What
was the team experimenting on?
Q23

29. The earliest known Easter Egg in software was placed in PDP-6/10
computers where to create a file you had to execute the command make
file_name. One could find the Easter Egg by naming the file X, which on
execution of the command (which forms the first half of the slogan)
would give the second half of a popular 1960’s American counter-culture
slogan and been in popular conscience and use since.
ID X and the slogan.
Q24