THE APRIL OPEN QUIZ
ZE PRELIMS

 37 questions
 11-20 starred
 Top 8 teams in the finals

 This song by Avial, billed as the first ever full length Folk Rock
Song in ‘Malayalish’, premiered at 0600hrs on Feb 01, 2012.
 The song was commissioned by X to announce their debut in
Kerala. The debut day featured 108 Elephants, 126 Boats and 180
KalariWarriors in action.
 Id X.
 Video removed.
 Link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMLlCnv7dq0

 The protagonist of Carl Sagan’s
Contact, Dr. Eleanor Arroway, is
named in tribute to two people.
 Name both.
 No part-points.

 “Drivers in Indian cities violate traffic rules when there are no cops
around – they jump traffic lights and go the wrong way on one-
way streets. These Xs are very effective and they can be on the job
seven days a week. They are frequently used in Britain and North
America as a crime prevention measure but it is the first time such
an idea had been employed in India.”
 This is Bangalore police commissioner M.A. Saleem speaking to
the AFP in March 2013.What idea is he talking about?

 First designed and synthesized by scientists at the Rice University
in 2003 as a part of chemical education for students, they are
organic molecules whose structural formulae resemble human
forms. The compounds consist of 2 benzene rings connected via a
few carbon atoms as the body, 4 acetylene units each carrying an
alkyl group at their ends which represents the hands and legs, and
a 1,3-dioxolane ring as the head.
 Their name is a portmanteau of 2 terms, one a pointer towards
the size and the other towards the microscopic human nature.
What are they called?
 Image follows.

 Aging in plants is connected to the reduction in the normal
production of a molecule called cyclic GMP. This leads to a
decrease in the plasticity of the spongy tissue in plants.
 While researching about methods to counter this, in 1999,
Israeli and Australian researchers discovered that small
concentrations of a substance dissolved in a vase of water could
double the shelf life of cut flowers, making them stand up
straight for as long as a week beyond their natural life span. The
study was later authenticated by the British Medical Journal.
 What was this substance?

 Still from the 1957 musical
Funny Face.
 What is Audrey Hepburn trying
to do here?

 Conversation from the 2004 comedy film Anchorman: The
Legend of Ron Burgundy, in which Ron Burgundy and his co-
anchors discuss their previous encounter of a violent midday
brawl with the rival KQHS Channel 9 Evening NewsTeam.
 What has been blanked out?

 These are the winners of the 2012 edition of the World
Championships of a particular sport. The invite-only
competition, in existence since 2008, is organized and
supervised by the international body of the sport calledTOOOL.
 Which sport?
 Image follows.

 The dashboard panels of most vehicles feature these icons.
What is their purpose?

 It's a physiological process that results from rise in sympathetic
activity in the autonomic nervous system.
 Sympathetic arousal causes physical changes in preparation for
expending energy. Some of these changes include digestion
shutting down, large veins in the gut contracting as blood supply
is rerouted away from the gut to deep muscles where it is more
needed and elevation in heart rate, respiratory rate and BP.
 How do we better know this process?

 X is the earliest recorded owner
of theVoynich manuscript.
 This painting by Giuseppe
Arcimboldo pictures X (who
was the patron of many
Northern Mannerists) as Y, the
Roman god of seasons, gardens
and fruit trees. The name of a
character from the Narnia
series is also a contraction ofY.
 Solve for X andY.

 The contraptions shown here
are usually made out of wood,
bone, caribou antlers and ivory.
The are known commonly as
ilgaak or iggaak.
 What are these items? OR
What purpose do they serve?

 Minibus taxis (such as the one pictured) in Bloemfontein,
seating 10-15 people, are referred to by a particular
nickname, a pointer towards their speed.
 What?

 Connect. Which 1950s project, the raw material of which took life at
the Karolinska Institute (of the Medicine Nobel fame), can be used
to complete this exhaustive list? Bigger images in the next 2 slides.

 Seals 1-4 The Four Horsemen
of the Apocalypse (the woodcut
is by Albrecht Durer)
 Seal 5  The cries of martyrs
for vindication (the painting by
El Greco)
 Seal 6  Great Earthquake and
other cataclysmic events
(woodcut by Albrecht Durer)
 Seal 7  Seven Angels with
seven trumpets

 X played tennis for Stanford in the early 70s, and became the
team’s No. 1 women’s singles player and was nationally ranked.
She taught at summer tennis camps, and at one of them she
met Billie Jean King, who urged her to quit college and become a
professional tennis player. She did not take that advice.
 On 24 July 2012, a day after her death, the Smithsonian
Magazine published her obituary titled “How X was even tougher
than Ripley in Alien”. The article also had a snippet on this
eponymous object, as it was installed on her special request.
 Who is X?What is this thing? Image in the next slide.

 This monument features on the coat of arms of the place
where it is located and is dedicated to City of Paris, Grand
Duke Constantine, Brave, Empress Maria, Chesme,
Yagondeid, Kavarna, Konlephy, Vladimir, Thunderer, Danube,
Bessarabia, Elbrose, and Krein among others.
 What are all these?
 Images in the next slide.

 Fans of which team dressed up like Elvis Presley during the last
week of the 2011-12 EPL season?Why?
 Images in the next 2 slides as well.

 X is a mixture of chemical compounds obtained through
fermentation by Actinobacteria species in the Actinosporangium
genus. Chromatographical separation yields several individual
components like alcindoromycin, collinemycin, marcellomycin,
mimimycin, musettamycin, rudolphomycin, schaunardimycin
etc.
 What is X? OR All these components and X take their name from
something that saw the light of the day in 1896. What?

 The word X is usually seen these days only in combination with
either of 2 prefixes.
 But its usage as X alone was once common and started as a
medieval English sea term meaning ‘to capsize.’ As an extension
of this sense, it came to mean being covered by water or
drowning. Sir Charles Lyell used it in this sense in his Principles
of Geology (1830): “Marsh land ... has at last been overflowed,
and thousands of the inhabitants Xed in the waves.” It could also
mean to turn a hollow vessel upside down to cover something.
 Just name the good word X.

 Luke Helder is a former University of Wisconsin–Stout college
student from Pine Island, Minnesota, who earned notoriety as
the Midwest Pipe Bomber in May 2002.
 He planted 18 pipe bombs in mailboxes across USA in
Nebraska, Colorado, Texas, Illinois and Iowa, covering 3,200
miles in the process. He was, however, captured before he
could achieve the number he had set out for.
 What is believed to be Helder’s inspiration for carrying out this
act? ORWhat was he trying to achieve? Image follows.

 These 3 paintings (painted in 2012) mark X’s first major foray into
the world of Art. They exploit the Chinese Calligraphy skills X had
picked up 15 years back. Even though the request was for only 1
painting, X got intrigued and did 4. X was dubious about the 4th
one, in German, and chose not to give it away.
 The Outlook covered these paintings under the title Suitable?Y-ly!
 Solve for X andY.

 The Great Seal bug, one of the first covert listening devices
to use passive techniques to transmit an audio signal hung in
the US ambassador’s residential office in Moscow for 7 years
till its discovery in 1952. The bug was the brainchild of X, who
also invented a motion detector for the automatic opening
of doors as well as the first ever burglar alarm. The principle
used by all these devices were very similar to the one X is
most famous for.
 Who is X? ORWhat is X’s most famous invention?
 Image in the next slide.

 From a Sep 2012 news article:
 Q: What do X andWile E. Coyote have in common?
 A: Other than looks you mean? Well both have their devilish plots,
deceptions and grand schemes that typically backfire. They also
have the wonderful ACME bomb sketches and of course their
continuous harassment of their foes, the Road Runner in one case
and the __________ /____________ on the other- Beep Beep
anyone.
 Who was compared toWile E Coyote?Why? Images follow.

 The Shortz Factor (in honor of NYT editor Will Shortz) is an
objective measure of crossword fame of a person’s name. It is
calculated by dividing the number of times a person's name has
appeared as a clue in the NYT crossword by the number of times
the name has appeared in the rest of the newspaper combined.
 Names useful for crosswords (a lot of vowels combined with N, R, T,
L, S), unusual names and people who are not TOO famous are the
three criteria that should be satisfied.
 With a whopping factor of 5.31, which famous lawyer tops the list in
the period considered by the Shortz Factor (1993-2012)? [Charlotte
RAE finished second with 3.00 and ERTE third with 2.04]

 Their origins can be traced back to the 1980s hip-hop scene
and were pioneered by New York sculptor Eddie Plein. They
are known to cause allergic reactions and bone loss. Ryan
Lochte was seen with them (in the design of the US flag) to
celebrate USA’s first Gold Medal at the 2012 Olympics and
this gave them a much needed boost in sales and popularity.
 What?

 Orarium was a small piece of cloth, made of silk or linen and
used for wiping the face by the Romans. Emperor Aurelian
introduced the practice of giving out a large number of Oraria
to his subjects for a particular purpose, something which has
survived to this day.
 What purpose?

 It happened for the first time in the 1820s. More than 170 years
later, it happened again in the mid 1990s, thanks to damage from
insects, and human intervention in the preceding years.
 Patterns were drawn on a sheet of paper and etched on plates of
copper. The embossed plate is put on a slab of lac, to execute the
finer points on copper. Once the copper plate is ready, it is
covered in half-inch strips of pure gold. A whopping 24 coats of
gold were applied (compared to 7-9 the first time), utilizing over
600 kg of gold. The plates are then used for their intended
purpose.
 The whole process was carried out under the aegis of the Jatha
based in Birmingham. What are we talking about?

 They are about 160 in number, around 30 of them still active.
The tallest one is Klyuchevskaya Sopka, the largest active of
its kind in the Northern Hemisphere, while the most striking
is Kronotsky, regarded as a prime candidate for the most
beautiful of its kind in the world.
 Which UNESCO World Heritage site?
 Image in the next slide.

 Excerpt from John Updike’s 1960 poem “Meditation on a News
Item”, which was inspired by a newspaper photograph
depicting the winner X of a fishing contest (on board a yacht
named Crystal, capturing five swordfish) being awarded the
trophy by the sponsorY, in their only meeting.
“As strange to me as if there were found,
In a Jacobean archive, an unquestionably authentic
Woodcut showing Shakespeare presenting the blue ribbon
For Best Cake Baked to Queen Elizabeth”
 Solve for X andY.

 Everything in this South Indian art form is based on the number
8 – 8 types of oil, 8 wicks, 8 characters, 8 performers, 8 stories, 8
plays, 8 hours of performance, training beginning at the age of
8, so on and so forth.
 It is performed in all its glory in only location in the country.
 Where?What is the significance of the number 8?
 Image in the next slide.

 X, most famous for a 1960 hit cover, sued Hewlett Packard
very recently for over half a billion dollars in damages over a
mobile app (for the Palm OS platform) called ‘The X’. The
now-disabled app helped users predict the size of male
genitalia by entering shoe sizes.
 Identify X.

 This name of city X in the West Bank, most notable for
containing the traditional burial site of the biblical Patriarchs
and Matriarchs (and is therefore considered the second-
holiest city in Judaism after Jerusalem) is used by an Indian
organizationY for its HQ.
 X andY please.

 This is a sculpture honouring
John Thomas Daniels (and his
15 minutes of fame more than
a century back), who had never
seen a camera prior to using
the Gundlach Korona view
camera (with a 5x7-inch glass-
plate negative) seen in the
visual.
 What was he capturing on
camera?

 One of the largest-scale choral works in the classical music
requiring huge instrumental and vocal forces, it premiered on 12
Sep, 1910 in Neue Musik-Festhalle, in the Munich International
Exhibition grounds. The vast hall had a capacity of 3,200, so to
assist ticket sales and raise publicity, impresario Emil Guttmann
devised the nickname X, much to the dismay of the composer
even though the number of people involved is not as much.
 What was the nickname?
 Image follows.

 Andy Warhol's final series of paintings was made in late
1986. The idea was hatched by the late Paris dealer,
Alexander Iolas, who arranged for the work to be paid for by
the Milan bank Credito-Valtellinese. The pictures were hung
in the bank's new premises, just across the street from the
Church of Santa Maria della Grazie.
 Name the series. Why was this location chosen?

 Pictured is a geothermal spa located in a lava field in Grindavik,
Iceland, and is one of the most visited attractions in the
country. The warm waters of the spa are rich in minerals like
silica and sulphur and bathing here has helped people suffering
from skin diseases such as psoriasis.
 The spa shares its name with the first book in a trilogy, the
other two books being The Garden of God (1923) and The Gates
of Morning (1925).
 Just identify. Image in the next slide.

 They are made of metal or
polyester and are incorporated
during the cylinder-moulding
process.
 They can be divided into two
types: fully embedded and
windowed. Hence, they can be
completely invisible or have a
star burst effect, i.e. appear to
weave in and out in one view
but appear in continuity when
properly viewed.
 What are we talking about?