IT WAS the year of the Beijing Olympics and the US presidential election. For the first time, two astronauts on the International Space Station cast their votes from space. Fortunately they made their choice electronically, otherwise the ballot box might now be orbiting the Earth, along with their colleague’s tool bag.
It was a mixed year for the forecasters who use mathematical models to peer into the future. First the good news. They got the presidential election spot-on. Now for the bad news. They failed dismally to foresee the collapse of the financial institutions that had made so many of their number rather wealthy. And when the price of crude oil soared past $130 per barrel, most of them expected it to continue on an upward spiral. It’s clearly too early to throw out the chicken entrails.
However, things could be far worse. Imagine if the next US vice-president was someone who thought human activity had a trivial effect on global warming, made George W. Bush look as if he had a grasp of geography, and whose views on evolution gave rise to a scientific neologism – palintology.
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So as we bid good riddance to 2008, here’s the traditional Â鶹´«Ã½ quiz – a gentle amble through the year’s stories, big and small. All you have to do is to sift the crackers from the turkeys.
Animal antics
1. Some macaques spend a lot of time chattering to each other. What is this all about?
a) Sex. Young macaques are just flirting with prospective partners
b) It’s girl talk. Female macaques are intensely social and like nothing better than a nice gossip
c) Food. They’re passing on tips about where to find the ripest fruit
2. Which of these traits is uniquely human? Choose only one
a) Spending money
b) Some of us can cook
c) Only we could engineer the credit crunch
Seasonal cheer
3. Which of these animals could drink any of us under the table?
a) Skunks
b) Newts
c) Tree shrews
4. Why is a wine bar the perfect place to pick up a hot date?
a) The subdued lighting hides your wrinkles
b) After one large glass of wine everyone looks attractive
c) Sweet music, soft lights and Chardonnay are a heady mixture that will impress any date
This sporting life
5. Why are 200-metre sprinters more likely to win if they are drawn in the inside lane?
a) Starting at the back of the field gives runners a strategic advantage by allowing them to keep their rivals in their sights
b) They are not. It’s harder to run round a tight curve than a gentle one
c) They are closer to the starting gun so they hear it first
6. What helps to give marathon runners a winning edge?
a) A short pair of heels puts a winning bounce in their stride
b) Sharp elbows help them to get ahead of the pack
c) Running barefoot makes you run faster, especially if the sun has made the surface baking hot
Lazy bones
7. Of course you weren’t asleep, you were just resting your eyes. So why is a power nap good for you?
a) Practice makes perfect. A mid-afternoon nap will give you an uninterrupted night’s slumber
b) When you wake up you are more likely to remember what it was you were supposed to be doing
c) You don’t know, but when you were a student it was the only way to get through those statistics lectures
8. The western world is in the middle of an obesity epidemic. This year researchers discovered a new risk factor. What was it?
a) Living in the suburbs. You don’t get enough exercise because it’s too far to walk to the shops
b) The closer you live to a burger bar the more likely you are to be obese
c) Owning an SUV, although researchers are not sure if SUVs encourage obesity or if obese people buy them for their extra width
Miscellany
9. As the years pass so the consequences of climate change become ever clearer. Which new threat did researchers discover this year?
a) Hotter weather will bring an epidemic of kidney stones
b) Not only are polar bears threatened, but so too are their parasites, notably Trichinella
c) Pacific smoked salmon will vanish from the shops
10. The US congressional elections of 1922 were just as memorable as this year’s presidential election, but in a very different way. What was it?
a) Anti-gambling candidates stood in protest at late-night poker games in the White House
b) Women had just got the vote. Now they wanted the railroads to employ female engineers. It was a woman’s right to choo-choos
c) John Davin was standing for the right of doctors to prescribe medical beer
Chameleons famously change colour. What is the main reason for the change in dwarf chameleons?
a) Fear makes them change, just as Aristotle suggested
b) It’s a way of attracting a mate and frightening off rivals
c) To help them evade over-amorous suitors when they have a headache