MAP ROUND

1) Right-side (red) vs. left-side (blue) traffic. Bright red and pink indicate countries which have switched.

2) Laws on homosexuality, ranging from full marriage rights (dark green) to capital punishment (dark red).

3) DVD region codes.

4) Date of adoption of the metric system.

5) Military spending as a percentage of GDP.

6) Literacy rate.


ROUND: Something's missing... 

1) Archaeopteryx. [6]

2) Cats. Others were all common in ancient Israel, but cats were unknown, although popular in Egypt. [3]

3) Gall bladder. "Chole" means bile in Greek, as in cholesterol, and the gall bladder produces bile. Bile helps break down fat, which horses never eat making the organ superfluous. [2]

4) A cigarettte. This became famous because it was used in conspiracy theories that Paul was dead and had been replaced, as the cigarette was in his right hand. [7]

5) (Horse) Polo. Field Hockey doesn't allow left-handed sticks, but is still a contested Olympic sport. [4]

6) Any variation in color-the piece was a white sheet of paper. Allais was a humorist, who also composed a silent symphony called Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Deaf Man and an all-red painting called "Apoplectic Cardinals Harvesting Tomatoes on the Shore of the Red Sea" [2]

ROUND: Borders

1) Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with their capitals Kinshasa and Brazzaville. Pool Malebo is a 500 square-kilometer lake-like widening of the Congo river, which was first explored by Lord Henry Morton Stanley. [4]

2) England/Scotland or England/Wales. Thought to be a descended from the Cumberland sheep dog and Collies. [5]

3) St. Martin/St. Maarten. The capitals are Phillipsburg (Dutch) and Marigot (French). [3]

4) Mexico and the USA. Several hundred die during the crossing every year from exposure to the harsh desert terrain. It has the most illegal crossings every year, with only Canada/USA having more legal crossings. [3]

5) The Danube River. It forms parts of the border between Austria/Germany, Austria/Slovakia, Bulgaria/Romania, Croatia/Serbia, Hungary/Slovakia, Romania/Serbia, and Romania/Ukraine. [6]

6) Vignette. The name comes from the traditional practice of printing an ornamental design, often made of leaves or vines, in between short stories in printed books. [4]

ROUND: Formerly Known As

1) Byzantion or its Latinisation Byzantium. [4]

2) Sega Corporation. The modern name is a contraction of Service Games so that it can be written with two katakana characters. [4]

3) Ethiopia-The Rastafari religious movement named for Haile Selassie, whose birth name was Tafari Makonen). [4]

4) John Paul I. He was Pope for 33 days in 1978 before dying under mysterious circumstances. [5]

5) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Theophilus being Greek for 'Lover of God' was translated by Mozart into Latin as 'Amadeus'. [3]

6) Berlin. It was changed due to hostility during World War I, Lord Kitchener was a British Field Marshall who died in 1916 when his boat hit a German mine, the name change was in his honor. [1]

ROUND: Colors

1) Maroons. From the Spanish 'cimarrón' for fugitive, which is where the term 'maroon' came about to denote being left. [3]

2) Red. 'Quotations from Chairman Mao,' also commonly called 'The Little Red Book' or 'The Red Treasured Book,' the book was considered compulsory reading during the Cultural revolution but was shunned by Mao's successor Deng Xiaoping. An English translation is available today for purchase with 311 pages and 33 chapters. [5]

3) Teal. The color is actually named after the common teal and many other types of ducks. [3]

4) (Deep) Saffron. The Saffron Brigade is a radical Hindu movement, and "saffronization" refers to their goal of purging non-Hindus from India. [4]

5) Pink. This works because after constantly viewing pink, the eye's red cone cells are fatigued, making the green cone's response to the grass relatively higher. [1]

6) Magenta. As used in T-Mobile's primary logo. T-Mobile lost the suit. [2]


ROUND: Little-known giants

1) Argon. Chosen for these applications but it is the cheapest noble gas. [3]

2) Zippers. They frequently have the initials 'YKK' emblazoned on them. [5]

3) Cassava. Also called Yucca and used to produce Tapioca. [1]

4) Plexiglass. Known by many other names including Lucite, Optix, Perspex. [1]

5) Singapore. Singapore is strategically positioned on the Straits of Malacca, through which the vast majority of Europe-Asia shipments go. [4]

6) Colossal squid. 'Colossus' meant giant statue, as in the famous Colossus of Rhodes. [6]


ROUND: Google It

1) 1 Petabyte. This is 10^15 bytes. [3]

2) Exposure to asbestos. Mesothelioma is a rare lung-cancer, sufferers of which are entitled to receive large compensation awards due to settled class-action lawsuits. [3]

3) Baidu. [4]

4) Craigslist. The company is in fact much older than Google, being founded in 1995 and still run privately by its original founder. [4]

5) Xbox 360. Followed by XM radio, Xbox live, and XKCD. [0]

6) Google News. Orkut was started by Orkut Büyükkökten, and Gmail by Paul Buchheit, both were several years later. [0]

ROUND: Recent Events

1) Edgar Degas. 1824-1917. [6]

2) Tokyo. (HINT: the city sits at a latitude of 35 degrees N) [0]

3) Unfriend. Technically this has been an OED word since 1659! [5]

4) The digital camera. A CCD Sensor uses the charge-coupled device to convert to a digital value the charge built up in an an analog light sensor. [4]

5) Changed auto traffic from driving on the right side of the road to the left side. This change was made to make purchasing used cars from Australia, New Zealand, and other neighboring countries easier. Despite widespread predictions of chaos the change went smoothly. [4]

6. 16. The complete spelling is 'Eyjafjallajökull.' [3]

TIEBREAKER: Nick Clegg is younger by 90 days.


Distribution of questions by number of correct answers:

      3 0
      4 1
      3 2
     10 3
     12 4
      5 5
      4 6
      1 7