Are you scientifically literate? Take our quiz

You may have an opinion on climate change, evolution education, stem-cell research, and science funding. But do you have the facts to back up your opinion? This quiz will test your basic scientific literacy.

- Eoin O'Carroll, Staff

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Question	Your Response	Correct Answer	Score
Composing about 78 percent of the air at sea level, what is the most common gas in the Earth's atmosphere?	Carbon dioxide Oxygen Nitrogen Hydrogen	Nitrogen
The Austrian monk Gregor Mendel's observations of what organism formed the basis for the science of genetics?	pea plants fruit flies tulips mice	pea plants
What term, which means the maximum absolute value of a periodically varying quantity, does the "A" in AM radio broadcasting stand for?	Amplification Amplitude Ampere Amphibian	Amplitude
In 1989, the US postal service drew criticism from paleontologists for releasing a stamp with what obsolete genus name, which translates from Greek as "Thunder Lizard"?	Tyrannosaurus Brontosaurus Stegosaurus Triceratops	Brontosaurus
Organic chemistry is the study of compounds that contain what element?	oxygen nitrogen carbon potassium	carbon
How many nanometers are there in a centimeter?	1,000 1,000,000 10,000,000 100,000,000	10,000,000
In physics, what letter is used to represent the speed of light in a vacuum?	a b c d	c
The only two known planets in our solar system that lack any moons are Venus and what other planet?	Mars Uranus Mercury Pluto	Mercury
What is the heaviest noble gas?	xenon neon helium radon	radon
Approximately how old is the Earth?	6015 years 100,000 years 4.5 million years 4.5 billion years	4.5 billion years
Newton's First Law of Motion describes what phenomenon?	Inertia: An object not subject to any net external force moves at a constant velocity Gravitation: Physical bodies attract each other with a force proportional to their mass Acceleration: The rate of change of a body over time is proportional to the net force acting on it Kinetic energy: The energy of a body is equal to one half of the product of its mass times and velocity squared	Inertia: An object not subject to any net external force moves at a constant velocity
Mars is often described as the "Red Planet" because of the prevalence of what element mixed with oxygen on its surface?	copper iron zinc cadmium	iron
What combustible compound, the principal component of natural gas, has the chemical formula CH4?	propane ethanol methane benzene	methane
What word, which comes from a Greek term meaning "good kernel," describes an organism whose cells contain chromosomes inside a nucleus bounded by a membrane, as distinguished from bacterial forms of life?	virus amoeba vertebrate eukaryote	eukaryote
Named for a 19th century English physicist, what unit of measurement is defined as the energy exerted by the force of one newton acting to move an object through a distance of one meter?	watt joule hertz pascal	joule
The lowercase of what letter of the Greek alphabet is used to denote diverse phenomena such as the photon, the third angle in a triangle, the heat capacity ratio in thermodynamics, a type of high frequency electromagnetic radiation?	alpha beta gamma delta	gamma
What element, whose atomic number is 8, is the most abundant element in the earth's crust, making up almost half the crust's total weight?	aluminum oxygen carbon nitrogen	oxygen
DNA contains adenine, cytosine, guanine, and what other nucleotide base, which is not found in RNA?	uracil adenosine thymine deoxyribose	thymine
What is the electrical resistance offered by a current-carrying element that produces a drop of one volt when a current of one ampere is flowing through it?	1 joule 1 watt 1 ohm 1 hertz	1 ohm
The letter K stands for what element on the periodic table?	tungsten tin potassium silver	potassium
What term describes the single initial cell of a new organism that has been produced by means of sexual reproduction?	zygote blastocyst embryo fetus	zygote
If you were to apply a net force of one Newton on a 200 gram object, what would be the acceleration of the object?	5 meters per second squared 2 meters per second squared 0.2 meter per second squared 50 meters per second squared	5 meters per second squared
Noting how light from objects that are moving away from the observer tend to shift to the red end of the spectrum, what scientist first established that the universe is expanding?	Albert Einstein Carl Sagan Johannes Kepler Edwin Hubble	Edwin Hubble
A temperature interval of one degree Fahrenheit is equal to an interval of 5/9ths of a degree Celsius. At about what temperature do the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales converge?	400 degrees 4000 degrees -40 degrees -400 degrees	-40 degrees
The genus Australopithecus, one species of which was an ancestor of modern humans, first evolved on what continent?	Australia Africa Asia South America	Africa
According to Bernoulli's Principle, an increase in the speed of a fluid occurs simultaneously with a decrease in what?	volume mass energy pressure	pressure
What is the name for the chemical compound that dentists use as "laughing gas" and that engineers and mechanics use as an oxidizer in rocketry and in motor racing?	nitrogen tetroxide hydrogen peroxide nitrous oxide hydrogen fluoride	nitrous oxide
Geologists categorize rocks into three types: Igneous, sedimentary, and what?	volcanic metamorphic crystalline oceanic	metamorphic
Two planets in our solar system are tied for having the lowest surface gravity – on each one you would weigh only about 38 percent of what you weigh on Earth. One of these planets is Mercury. What is the other one?	Neptune Saturn Mars Venus	Mars
What moon, the largest moon orbiting Saturn, is the only known object in the solar system other than Earth that is known to have liquid on its surface?	Tethys Titan Rhea Enceladus	Titan
The 2006 demotion of Pluto to the status of dwarf planet was precipitated by the discovery of what object orbiting beyond Pluto, believed to be 27 percent more massive than Pluto and named for the Greek goddess of strife and discord?	Ceres Eris Nyx Charon	Eris
In classical mechanics, what is defined as the product of an object's mass and velocity?	force acceleration momentum kinetic energy	momentum
What word, which comes from Ancient Greek words meaning "entire" and "Earth," describes a supercontinent thought to have existed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras, about 250 million years ago?	Gaia Eurasia Pangaea America	Pangaea
What term for an elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter gets its name from a line in James Joyce's 1939 novel "Finnegans Wake"?	atom quark proton electron	quark
The mathematical constant e is defined as the base of the natural system of logarithms, having a numerical value of approximately what?	3.142 0.567 1.618 2.718	2.718
Protium, which consists of a single proton and no neutrons, is the most common isotope of what element?	helium hydrogen nitrogen carbon	hydrogen
The lowercase version of what Greek letter is used to symbolize the coefficient of friction in classical physics?	delta mu epsilon zeta	mu
What type of cell division in eukaryotic cells is divided into prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase?	meiosis mitosis fission senescence	mitosis
What word, which comes from a Greek term meaning "old stone" describes the era of human history, from about 2.5 million years ago to 12,000 years ago, which was distinguished by the development of the first stone tools?	Holocene Jurassic Paleolithic Pleistocene	Paleolithic
With an atomic number of 9, what chemical element is the lightest element of the halogen series? It gets its name from a Latin word meaning "stream" or "move freely."	bromine astatine fluorine iodine	fluorine
After the Moon, what is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows?	Polaris Mercury Venus Betelgeuse	Venus
According to the standard model of Big Bang cosmology, approximately how old is the Universe?	6015 years old 14 million years old 14 billion years old 14 trillion years old	14 billion years old
What word, which derives from a Greek term meaning "unequal" or "bent," describes a triangle whose three sides are of unequal length?	equilateral isosceles oblong scalene	scalene
Over half of the world's supply of what element, which gets its name from the epithet of the Greek goddess Athena, is used in catalytic converters?	americium palladium molybdenum cadmium	palladium
In quantum mechanics, the physical constant used to describe the sizes of quanta – denoted as h – is named after what German physicist?	Erwin Schrödinger Max Planck Albert Einstein Werner Heisenberg	Max Planck
Approximately how long does it take light from the sun to reach Earth?	It's pretty much instantaneous Eight seconds Eight minutes Eight hours	Eight minutes
In meteorology, what does the suffix -nimbus added to the name of a cloud indicate?	It is at a low altitude It is at a high altitude It is vertically developed It is precipitating	It is precipitating
What element, which has the atomic number 16 and is a bright yellow crystalline solid at room temperature, is referred to in the Bible as "brimstone"?	magnesium sulfur phosphorus chlorine	sulfur
The moons Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto all orbit what planet?	Saturn Jupiter Neptune Uranus	Jupiter
What unit of measurement, which is equal to 33,000 foot-pounds per minute, did 18th-century steam engine entrepreneur James Watt come up with?	British Thermal Unit watt erg horsepower	horsepower