Rocks
Plants
Bugs
Chess History
Literary Devices
100
These simple rock formations are created over millions of years, as water and minerals drip from cave ceilings.
What are stalactites?
100
Giving photosynthesizing plants their green color, these organelles are filled with stacks of thylakoids.
What are chloroplasts?
100
The flu, the common cold; a pathogen of some sort.
What is a bug?
100
First called "chaturanga," chess was invented in this country.
What is India?
100
Like its cousin, consonance, this dashing device is the repetition of similar sounds.
What is alliteration (or assonance)?
200
A product of the Chernobyl meltdown, this lethal mass of silicon dioxide was named for its wrinkly, elephantine appearance.
What is the Elephant's Foot?
200
Fungi and algae partner symbiotically to form this green flaky organism which often grows on rocks and trees.
What is lichen?
200
Nimrod, a mythical hunter, was transformed into a synonym for "idiot" when audiences misunderstood an allusion from this cartoon rabbit.
Who is Bugs?
200
This move, which translates to "in passing," is a rare interaction between two pawns.
What is en passant?
200
"The horses galloped on, devouring space," from The Brothers Karamazov, is an example of this common literary device which uses neither "like" nor "as."
What is a metaphor?
300
Formed when basalt lava cools, these rocks are oddly hexagonal, and form long, tightly-packed columns.
What is columnar basalt?
300
Derived from French, this plant gets its name from its lion's tooth-like leaf.
What is a dandelion?
300
In 1945, the USSR developed a short-range passive transmitter, hidden in gift for American ambassador Arevell Harriman. "The Thing" was capable of secretly broadcasting radio signals to nearby agents, making it one of the first examples of this kind of device.
What is a bug?
300
Renamed to "bishop" for localization in England, they were originally representations of these animals.
What are elephants?
300
Used often in The Sound and the Fury, this device is the confusion of the senses. It is also a real-world sensory condition.
What is synesthesia?
400
Developed in 1945, this impractical weapon is a sphere of plutonium that rests precariously half-open. Closing the two halves results in a lethal burst of radiation.
What is a Demon Core?
400
Named for how they "cleave," or adhere, to clothing, the leaves of this plant were used as bedding in Medieval Europe.
What are cleavers?
400
In 1947, Dr. Grace Hopper and her team became the first computer scientists to successfully solve this kind of computer error. Their machine's consistent miscalculations were fixed when the scientists opened the lid and discovered one of these, gumming up the works.
What is a bug? (Specifically a moth.)
400
One of the most recent additions to chess, this rule invokes stalemate a certain number of moves after a player loses every piece but their king.
What is the 50 move rule?
400
Originally "zeugnunai" in Greek, this device is the semantic pairing of two words or ideas. "She took my advice and my wallet."
What is zeugma?
500
A kind of topography formed by the erosion of limestone, resulting in towers, fissures, or sinkholes.
What is a karst?
500
Changing scientists' conception of the forest as a grounds for competition between species, this symbiotic network of fungi and tree roots allows for trophic exchange.
What is the mycorrhizal network?
500
Technically speaking, a specific classification for insects in the Hemiptera group, distinguished by their piercing mouthparts. Not, e.g., spiders, centipedes, or even lady bugs.
What is bugs?
500
A predecessor to the modern Queen, this piece could only move diagonally, one square at a time.
What is the King's Advisor?
500
A figure of speech, as in "hired hands" or "the oval office," wherein a whole is referred to by one of its parts, or a part by its whole.
What is synecdoche (or metonymy)?