ACS Riddles
I bond with everyone, I'm a girl's best friend,
My chain of structures seems to never end.
I'm in plastics, proteins, the DNA you trace
I'm the king of macromolecules, in every living space.
What am I?
Carbon!
While experimenting with cathode rays in 1895, Wilhelm Rontgen noticed a nearby chemical screen glowing in the dark, leading to his accidental discovery of this medical imaging radiation
What are X-rays?
A metallurgist's subject of study
What are metals?
The most abundant element in the universe
What is hydrogen?
Which element shares its name with the doomed home planet of the Man of Steel?
Krypton
My base wide and heavy, I sit safely and stand,
My narrow neck is made to hold right in your hand.
If you are clumsy, there's no need to fear,
Just swirl me round, and no spills will appear.
What am I?
An Erlenmeyer flask
In 1928, Alexander Fleming accidentally left a petri dish open in his London lab, discovering that this common kitchen mold naturally produced the world's first life-saving antibiotic
What is penicillin?
An ornithologist's subject of study
What are birds?
The most abundant uncombined element in Earth's atmosphere
What is nitrogen?
What element is referenced the most throughout music (there are two, so either will be accepted)
Gold and silver
I speed up reactions, I hasten the pace
I lower activation walls, I win the chemical race.
Though I join in the reaction, I am never used or spent
I'm up and ready to go again, without a scratch or dent
What am I?
A catalyst!
German alchemist Hennig Brand discovered this glowing element in 1669 through a bizarre experiment where he boiled down 1,500 gallons of human urine in his basement
What is phosphorus?
A lepidopterist's subject of study
What are butterflies?
The element with the highest melting point of all pure elements on the periodic table
What is tungsten?
Rock star Farrokh Bulsara took his famous stage surname from the planet closest to the sun, which also shares its name with this toxic element
Mercury (Freddie Mercury)
From social chair, to demo, to social chair again
He has a new job now (no, not as Carmen's best friend).
He'll give you a wave whenever you're near
You might catch him saying, "This is our year."
Who is this?
GAGE :D
German chemist Friedrich August Kekule claimed he solved the long-standing mystery of this elusive 6-carbon ring structure after having a daydream of a snake biting its own tail
What is benzene?
An ichthyologist's subject of study
What are fish?
The rarest naturally occurring element in the Earth's crust, with a total global amount estimated at less than 30 grams at any given moment
What is Astatine?
In the movie Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project scientists have to switch from using uranium to this highly radioactive element to build the "Fat Man" bomb
What is plutonium?
The king of Calcium, the tamer of lactose
I'm the chillest professor at Truman, case closed
I am quite popular, I'm an Instagram star,
I may just be teaching your seminar!
Who am I?
Dr. Humphry!!
In 1856, 18-year-old chemist William Perkin tried to synthesize a cure for malaria in his home lab but ended up creating a dark sludge that accidentally became the world's first synthetic dye of this color
What is purple?
A bryologist's subject of study
What is moss?
Albert Ghiorso holds the Guinness World Record for discovering or co-discovering the most chemical elements, with a total of 12. Name three of these elements.
Americium, curium, berkelium, californium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, nobelium, lawrencium, rutherfordium, dubnium, and seaborgium
To melt down a lock in Season 1 of Breaking Bad, Walter White uses this incredibly corrosive acid, which is so dangerous it can eat right through glass flasks and bathtubs
What is hydrofluoric acid (HF)?