Question - 642

What does this illustrate?

Answer: The American flag as would be perceived by people with different degrees of color blindness (Daltonism). Raghu, Siddarth Pai, Krithi, Iam and Divya Shankar got it. Well done.

Question - 590

Connect.

Answer: Tourette's syndrome. Only Divya Shankar got it. Bravo!

Question - 589

Before and after pictures of the first recipient of what? (This week's questions are courtesy KQA)

Answer: Leonard Thompson was the first recipient of an insulin injection. Only Dinesh and Divya Shankar got it. Nicely done.

Question - 586

What does this map depict? (courtesy: Manix)

Answer: The map depicts areas of high-levels of Chromium in tap water. Vetti alone got it right. Bravo!

Question - 487

Connect.

Hint: Origin of the McMeme.

Answer: Gray's/Grey's Anatomy. On the left is Henry Gray, the eponymous author of the classic medical textbook Gray's Anatomy, now in its 40th edition. On the right is Shonda Rhimes, the creator of the popcult classic Grey's Anatomy -- which gave us McDreamy, McSteamy, and other McMemes. Dinesh, Mekie, and Kamal Rathi got it right. Well done.

Question - 158

The visual in the top left is mocking the first efforts made to overcome this while the three gentlemen in the top right are gladly proclaiming that they have managed to do so. However, they aren't completely successful due to the bottom two visuals. What am I talking about?

Answer: The smallpox virus. The top left spoofs Jenner's vaccination methods based on cow lesions (the people are sprouting bovine appendages after getting inoculated), the top right shows health officials declaring that the smallpox virus has been eradicated from the world. However, US and Russia continue to hold stockpiles of the virus (heavily guarded) at the locations shown at the bottom despite several pleas to have them destroyed. The locations are CDC in Atlanta and VECTOR somewhere in Russia. Vijay, Raghu, Iam, Manix and Divya got it. Well done.

Question - 148

Person in visual 1 took the things in visual 2 from the person in visual 3. Something immortal (not metaphorically speaking, literally immortal) was born and there have been suggestions that this immortal being be named after the person in visual 4. Identify all.

Answer: George Otto Gey took the so called HeLa cells from Henrietta Lacks, a cancer victim. These cells were the first human cells which were observed to proliferate rapidly (well past the Hayflick limit) outside the human body. This is supposedly due to the active presence of the enzyme telomerase in these cells. For reasons I don't quite understand, these cells possess a different number of chromosomes from normal human cells and so it has been suggested that they form a new immortal species and that it should be named after Stanley Gartler who has done a lot of work in this area. Mekie, Arvind, Raghu and Anshul got it. Well done.

Question - 76

Identify all visuals and connect.

Answer: The people are Osamu Shimomura (top left), Martin Chalfie (bottom left) and Roger Tsien, the 2008 chemistry Nobel laureates. They studied a green fluorescent protein (GFP) produced by the Jellyfish Aequorea Victoria and modified it to serve as a cell marker. The green mice are a result of such experiments as are the spectacular "brainbows" shown in the bottom right. The gene that creates the GFP was first isolated by Douglas Prasher of the Woods Hole Oceonographic institute which he freely provided to both Tsien and Chalfie. Sadly, Prasher lost his job due to lack of grants and now drives a courtesy shuttle for a car dealership in Huntsville, Alabama. Arvind, Divya, Mekhala, Hirak, RajeshK, Ashwin, Iam, Adi and Rahul Trivedi got it. Well done.

Question - 39

Today's question is courtesy Iam. Identify A & B (they share a common theme). Image A is a bit cropped to remove the legend in the map. The disappearance of Antarctica and New Zealand are not important.

Answer: Visual A shows the spread of Avian influenza across the world with the red dots showing countries where the flu spread to humans. The second visual is cheekily termed B and shows the spread of killer bees across United states. Swapnaa got the first one but could not crack the second visual.