10-Question Quiz: 'Science Friday'

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. In our spring membership drive trying to reach our goal of 10,000 donors. Thank you for being one if you can. You know our philosophy on this show, during membership drives, if we need to do the whole pledge week thing, let's have some fun doing it. Once again this drive, we're doing a 10-Question Quiz every day. Get two in a row right and win a Brian Lehrer Show baseball hat or Brian Lehrer Showmug, your choice.

Each quiz during this drive has a topic derived from a different public radio show. Yesterday it was ONE A, which meant all questions about the First Amendment. Today being Friday, it's Science Friday. The quiz questions will be based on news about science. Who wants to play? 212-433-WNYC. As I said before the news, you don't have to have been a chemistry major to win. You just have to be paying a little bit of attention. 212-433-9692. Who wants to play? Again, get two in a row right, and you win a Brian Lehrer Show baseball hat or a Brian Lehrer Show mug. We're going to start with Alex in Park Slope who's on line one. Hi, Alex. Ready to play?

Alex: Hi, Brian. Yes.

Brian Lehrer: What's the better-known name for the Aurora Borealis, which was in the news around here recently?

Alex: The Northern Lights.

Brian Lehrer: The Northern Lights is right. As many of you know, thanks to a powerful solar storm they were visible in this area, if you were far enough away from the city lights and as far south as Alabama recently. Question number two, in 2021, which company launched the first all-civilian space crew to orbit the Earth?

Alex: I think that's SpaceX.

Brian Lehrer: That is SpaceX. You got your two in a row right. Alex, you want a baseball hat, or you want a mug?

Alex: Mug.

Brian Lehrer: One mug coming to Alex in Park Slope. Hang on, we're going to take your address off the air. We're going to go next to Lenny in Manhattan. Hi, Lenny. Ready to play?

Lenny: Yes. Hello.

Brian Lehrer: Hello. Question number three in our 10-Question Quiz. NASA's Perseverance Rover made headlines back in 2021 for successfully extracting from Mars. They found this on Mars. What important chemical element necessary for life?

Lenny: Water? Oh, an element. Oxygen?

Brian Lehrer: Oxygen is right. I was going to give you that clue, element, think periodic table, and you did. Yes, the scientists apparently did this, from what I'm reading, by using a device called MOXIE for short, that would've been another clue if we needed it. The hint would've been take away one letter from MOXIE, and you would have part of the word. It's MOXIE for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, whoa, but you got it without that. All right. Question number four, true or false. The Amazon rainforest, the lungs of the earth, produce about 20% of the Earth's oxygen. True or false, 20%?

Lenny: False.

Brian Lehrer: That is false. Were you guessing? Were you just taking your, "Well, I have a 50-50 shot I'm going to guess false," guess, or did something stick in your brain?

Lenny: A little maybe 51% in my brain.

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Lenny: [chuckles] It was sort of on the guess line.

Brian Lehrer: The reason is, though the claim has been repeated in news coverage and by world leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron, it's an overestimate. A National Geographic story from a few years back explained this. Citing a pair of ecologists who speculate that the erroneous claim may stem from the fact that the Amazon contributes about 20% of the oxygen produced by photosynthesis on land, that is 20% of the oxygen that comes from plants but not 20% of the total oxygen. You win. Lenny, are you a hat person or a mug person?

Lenny: I'll take a hat, please.

Brian Lehrer: Okay.

Lenny: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Hang on. Thank you. We're going to take your address, and obviously, we will mail that to you. Rutwij in San Francisco, you're on WNYC. Hello, Rutwij. Ready to play?

Rutwij: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: 10-Question Quiz, question number--

Rutwij: Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear you. Can you hear me okay?

Rutwij: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Question number five, sharing about 99% of our DNA, which animal species are human's Closest living relatives? There are two, so either one of those two sharing about 90% of our DNA, who are they?

Rutwij: Chimp or gorilla.

Brian Lehrer: Chimp or Bonobos is what I have, but chimp is right. You get that right. Both these great apes share 98.7% of their DNA with humans, so both are acceptable answers. Okay. Question number six. Scientists recently observed a non-human great ape in the wild treating a wound on his own face. "The first systemically or systematically documented case of active wound treatment with a plant species known to contain biologically active substance by a wild animal," according to a study published earlier this month. The question is what kind of great ape, that wasn't a human or a bonobo or a chimpanzee was evolved enough in the brain department to do this?

Rutwij: That has to be a gorilla in my first answer.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, unfortunately, no. Thank you for trying. I don't know. Somebody could tell me if an orangutan, which is the answer counts as a gorilla, but I think it's a different species. Maybe one of our science-- Ah, okay. Carl Boisrond, our producer who wrote this quiz, confirms that the orangutan is not a gorilla. That was a wrong answer. This was observed in a forest reserve in Indonesia, Sumatra specifically. There you go. Pretty amazing to think of what we call a wild animal doing that, right? Andrew in Hapag, ready to play?

Andrew: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Question number seven, though the Federal Public Health Emergency for COVID-19 ended over a year ago, the CDC is still monitoring new variants, and there is a new one in the news just recently. What is the name that scientists have given the group of coronavirus variants currently on the rise? We can accept one of two names that have both been in the news for the new variant or group of new variants. Got it?

Andrew: Yes. H1N1?

Brian Lehrer: No. I'll give you one more chance.

Andrew: Okay.

Brian Lehrer: That was an old one. No? Okay. I guess that's wrong. Andrew doesn't have another one to try. The answer is FLiRT, which stands for something, but I don't know what, or KP.2. You'll be hearing unfortunately, I think KP.2 or FLiRT more as the summer goes on. Although they say they don't know how much of a surge this is going to produce. There's so little COVID around right now. They don't know if it's going to happen like it has in the past that there'll be a summer surge. Maybe, maybe not but KP.2 or FLiRT. Caroline in Brooklyn, ready to play?

Caroline: Yes. Hi.

Brian Lehrer: Hi. Question number eight, the CDC says there have been more than 90 million poultry impacted by H5N1 better known as what?

Caroline: Bird flu.

Brian Lehrer: Bird flu is right or avian flu. Question number nine, what groundbreaking gene editing treatment was approved in 2023 for sickle cell disease? What gene editing treatment was approved for sickle cell disease? That's a hard one.

Caroline: Is it CRISPR?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, it is. CRISPR. Hat or a mug, Caroline?

Caroline: Yay. [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: Hat or a mug?

Caroline: A hat, please.

Brian Lehrer: Okay. Hang on. We're going to take your address. All right. We just have one question left. Anne in Red Bank, you get the privilege of winning a prize if you get just one in a row right because we only have one question left. Question 10. Ready to play?

Anne: I am.

Brian Lehrer: Complete this headline from NPR the other day. The headline was, RFK Junior is not alone. More than a billion people have parasitic--

Anne: Worms in the brain.

Brian Lehrer: Worms is correct. Easiest prize you've ever won. Right, Anne?

Anne: Ooh, that is absolutely true. I used to live in the Philippines, and worms were a problem.

Brian Lehrer: There you go. Hat or a mug?

Anne: A mug.

Brian Lehrer: Hang on, we're going to take your address. Thank you all for playing. That's our 10-Question Quiz for today. We'll have another one on Monday, derived from another name of a public radio show. Today's was derived from Science Friday. By the way, stay tuned for our 3 o'clock hour today when we're going to have Science Friday right here on WNYC and more Brian Lehrer Show to come.

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