Lead-ers
This person discovered tetraethyllead's fuel-enhancing properties, before going on to develop CFCs for use as refrigerants.
Who is Thomas Midgley?
Tetraethyllead reduces the frequency of this phenomenon, which occurs when fuel in an engine spontaneously combusts before the spark plug sparks.
What is engine knock?
This word, Latin for “lead”, is the origin of the English word “plumbing” and the periodic table’s symbol for lead, “Pb”.
What is plumbum?
The CDC has concluded that this is the only safe blood lead level.
What is 0?
Almost all highly energy-efficient lightbulbs in use today use these as a light source.
What are LEDs?
This person plays for the Golden State Warriors and leads all NBA players in career three-pointers made.
Who is Steph Curry?
Despite its name, pencil lead contains no lead. It’s actually made out of this allotrope of carbon.
What is graphite?
Upper-class Romans used lead to help ferment and sweeten this drink.
What is wine?
Lead mimics this common element in our bodies, wreaking havoc with our enzyme function.
What is calcium?
Students in US schools often recite this to show allegiance to the American flag.
What is a pledge (of allegiance)?
This person, the current Prime Minister of New Zealand, is best known for leading her nation through the pandemic and quickly spearheading gun control laws after a mass shooting.
Who is Jacinda Ardern?
This type of battery is used to start the engine of nearly all gas-powered cars.
What is a lead-acid battery?
Final Jeopardy
The National Lead Company used this caricature to advertise lead paints to children and their parents.
The half-life of lead in our bones is approximately this long.
What is two to three decades?
This person, one of the greatest female swimmers of all time, holds the world record in the 800m and 1500m freestyle.
Who is Katie Ledecky?
This person, President of the United States from 1923 to 1929, ignored advice from leading scientists and allowed the Ethyl Company to sell leaded gasoline.
Who is Calvin Coolidge?
Today, leaded fuel is still used to power this type of aircraft.
What is a piston-engine plane?
Marketed extensively by National Lead and other paint companies, this was the most popular lead-based pigment in early 20th century America.
What is white lead?
Clair Patterson compared the teeth and bones of 1960s Americans with those of Peruvian and Egyptian mummies; he found that lead concentrations were this many times higher in the Americans.
What is 1000x?
This rock band is most famous for their untitled fourth album, which contains the song “Stairway to Heaven”.
What is Led Zeppelin?
This country mines almost as much lead as every other country on Earth combined.
What is China?
When offset by 20 years, blood lead levels are extremely well correlated with this statistic, whose peak in the 1990s led to hysteria about “superpredator” youth.
What is violent crime?
Ancient Greek physicians discovered that lead was toxic in this century.
What is the 2nd century BCE?
An autopsy of workers who died at the “looney gas building” found that lead was concentrated in these three organs.
What are the lungs, brain, and bones?
This city, located at the southwestern tip of Lake Erie in Ohio, shares its name with a city in central Spain.
What is Toledo?