Question - 195

The last three visuals clue to the most famous works of the person shown in the first visual. Identify him.

Answer: This is the American poet Carl Sandburg. Most of his poems are about the city of Chicago (second visual), he wrote a series of children's stories called Rootabaga stories (third visual) and wrote a biography of Lincoln that won a Pulitzer prize. Hirak was the only one to get this. Bravo.

Question - 194

First visual shows an artist amidst his works of art. The second visual is a band that collaborated with this artist in their early stages. Identify both.

Answer: The artist is Andy Warhol with his famous Campbell soup cans in the background. The group is Velvet Underground with whom Warhol collaborated a lot in their early days in particular with the famous album cover art for The Velvet Underground & Nico. Mekie, Raghu, Arvind, Manix, Swapnaa, Rahul Trivedi, Anshul, Hirak, Adi, Rajesh, Iam and Keshav got this one. Well done.

Update: No posting today. Apologies. Regular updates resume Sunday night.

Question - 193

What is this? Where is it located?

Answer: It is a submarine and it is yellow. Its a reference to er, yellow submarine by the Beatles. The model is found outside Liverpool's international airport which is named after John Lennon. Anirudh Patil, Arvind, Rajeev, Shweta, Adithya, Anon, Anshul, Divya, Swapnaa, Vetti, Rajesh, Avinash and Hirak got it. Well done.

Question - 192

The person in the first visual wrote it. The person in the second visual directed it. The third visual shows the poster. Identify the movie and the people.

Answer: The people are Ira Levin and Roman Polanski, author and director respectively of Rosemary's baby. I had originally wanted to put another visual for this question but decided against it because I felt it had a mild spoiler. If you have already seen the movie, check out the poster I had in mind here (WARNING: slightly graphic and a definite spoiler). If you haven't seen it yet, I strongly recommend that you watch it. Arvind, Shweta, Rajeev, Raghu, Keshav, Anon, Vetti, Divya, Iam, Swapnaa and Hirak got it. Well done.

Question - 191

The man in the left set into motion a series of events captured in the three newspaper clippings shown. It resulted in a landmark case in US judicial history. Who is he and what did he do?

Answer: The picture shows Daniel Ellsberg, a RAND employee who released an internal government memo on the Vietnam war to the New York Times. The government tried to stop the publication of the memo but the Supreme court decided that it is within the press' first amendment rights to publish the memo. The memo is popularly termed the "Pentagon papers". Shweta, Pappu, Divya, Rajeev, Anon, Manix, Arvind, Iam, Vetti, Swapnaa, Avinash and Rajesh got it. Well done.

Question - 190

Connect the two visuals.

Answer: The first visual is the Imola F1 track (the San Marino GP) where Ayrton Senna had a fatal crash in 1994. The corner where he crashed is called the Tamburello after the musical instrument shown in the right. Tamburello is also the name of a squash-like sport played with a racket that looks like the drum. After gentle prodding by way of hints, Rajeev, Iam, Rajesh K, Anshul, Shweta + Divya and Avinash got it. Well done.

Question - 189

Connect all the visuals.

Answer: The connect is the tower of Babel. The first visual is a woodcut by Escher depicting the tower. In Biblical mythology, mankind aspired to build a tower so high it reached upto paradise. Angered by this, God gave the men different languages so they couldn't communicate with each other. The second visual shows a ziggurat in Borsippa, Sumer which supposedly gave rise to this legend. The bottom right visual is a schematic of the Babel fish from Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy which is named after the tower of Babel. The other visual is the logo of Altavista's Babelfish translator which is named after the concept in HHGTTG. Raghu (whose comments I published too early and had to delete), Arvind, anon, Avinash, Trevor Burnham, Rajesh, Hirak and Melissa got it. Well done.

Question - 188

The two visuals in the top left show the headquarters of this organization (one is a miniature painting and the other is the present day ruins). The head of this organization shared a nickname with the natural formation shown in the top right (the formation and the organization are otherwise completely unrelated). The organization has an etymological connection to the bottom visual. Identify the organization, the nickname and the associated etymologies.

Answer: The fortress is that of the Hashshashin sect located in Alamut, Iran. The dreaded sect perfected the art of political assassination and was headed during their most powerful times by Rashid ad-Din Sinan who was widely known as the Old man of the mountain. The third visual shows a natural rock formation resembling a human face located in New Hampshire also nicknamed Old man of the mountain (the formation collapsed recently). The bottom visual shows cannabis plants. Legend has it that the Hashshashin warriors shot themselves up with the drug before embarking on their missions. We owe both the words assassin and hashish to this piece of history. Iam, Raghu and Rajeev got it. Well done.

Question - 187

The story behind the 3 sketches (viewed as a series - top left, top right and then bottom left) is supposedly this - a famous politician told a scientist requesting funding for a project that if he can explain what the project does in a way that the politician can understand, he would get the money. He illustrated the concept using these sketches in a way a politician would appreciate and got the funding. However, the project suffered a major setback due to the incident shown in the last visual. Identify the project (the above story might be apocryphal. I couldn't find multiple sites verifying it).

Answer: The sketches explain the role the Higgs boson (God particle) plays in the Standard Model in giving elementary particles their masses. The scientist (Brian Cox) used a cocktail party analogy to explain this to Margaret Thatcher (who can be clearly seen in the bottom left visual). For more details, go here. The last visual shows the damage caused by the recent accident at the LHC that has set the project back several months. Keshav was the only one to get this one. Bravo.

Question - 186

The two albums whose covers are shown in the first two visuals were embroiled in a controversy. The third visual is an ad which refers to this controversy while supporting the first album. Identify the albums, bands and the controversy.

Answer: The albums are Crest of a Knave by Jethro Tull and And Justice for all by Metallica. The controversy was that in 1989, the Grammy for the best hard rock/metal performance was given to Tull over Metallica. Jethro Tull isn't exactly a heavy metal band which ticked many people off. The ad features Ian Anderson's flute prominently and supports Tull's status as a heavy metal band. The next year, when Metallica did indeed win a Grammy, they thanked Tull for not releasing an album that year. Arvind, anon, Mekie, Raghu, Keshav, Hirak, Iam, Terms of Service, Rajeev, Ashwin, Pi, Manix, Anshul, Shreya, Vetti, Rajesh, Sha, Avinash and Pappu got this one making this one of the most answered questions. Well done.

Question - 185

Sculpture in honor of who/what?

Answer: This is a sculpture honoring al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who threw a shoe at George W. Anon, Manix, Raghu, Rajesh K, Pi, Anon, Anshul, Terms of Service, Avinash, Pappu, Rajesh, Rajeev, Keshav and Hirak got it. Well done.

Question - 184

The visuals in the left are conjectured to form the thing that is blanked out in the visual on the right. Identify all.

Answer: The peaks are Jebel Musa in Morocco and the Rock of Gibraltar. Together, they form the Pillars of Hercules. Raghu and Hirak got it. Well done.

Question - 183

Identify.

Answer: This is a poster of the people who stood trial at Nuremberg after WWII. Anshul, Mekie, Schmetterling, Arvind, Manix, an anon, Terms of service, Iam, Pappu pimp, Rajesh, Hirak and Vikrant + Vikram + Keshav got it. Well done.

Question - 182

The maker of the movie in the top left sued the maker of the movie in the bottom and won the case. This is despite the fact that both movies borrowed heavily from the novel in the right without due credit. The director who won the lawsuit later claimed that he made far more money out of the suit than from the movie. Both movies are extremely famous. Identify.

Answer: The movies are Yojimbo by Kurosawa and Sergio Leone's Fistful of dollars. The novel is "Continental Op" by Dashiel Hammett. Leone was sued by Kurosawa but Leone claimed the idea is from Hammett's work (there are several similarities between the 3 works - for example, in all 3 works, the protoganist is nameless). Arvind, Hirak, Rajeev, Manix, Pappu, Iam, two anons, Raghu, athreyat, Rahul Trivedi, Anshul, Rajesh, Terms of Service, Swapnaa and J got it. Well done.

Question - 181

What is this and who made this model?

Answer: This is a model of the solar system built by Kepler on the basis of the 5 platonic solids. He firmly believed that the universe has a geometric basis and expended prodigious computational efforts to come up with this model only to discard it as new data revealed that the model was flawed. Iam and Hirak got it. Well done.

Question - 180

Almost the last scene of which movie?

Answer: The movie is the Shining and the scene depicts a party at the Overlook hotel with Jack Nicholson as the bartender. Raghu, Iam, anon, Mekie, Rahul Trivedi, anon, Rajeev, Hirak and Rajesh got it. Well done.

Question - 179

Connect the visual in the top left to the other visuals. While the top left visual is unique, the list of species that connect to it is not limited to the ones shown.

Answer: The top left is Van Gogh's depiction of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. The species are Takahe, Mahogany glider, Wollemi pine and the Coelacanth. The fossil records for these animals disappeared for long periods of time before reappearing again leading biologists to name these the Lazarus taxon in parallel to the biblical story. Manix, an anon and Iam got it. Well done.

Question - 178

Identify and connect the visuals. The list is not exhaustive.

Answer: The visuals represent different styles of moustaches. From the top counterclockwise, the visuals are Persistence of memory by Dali, Fu Machu, Pancho Villa, Genghis Ghan, Walrus and a horseshoe. All are names of moustache styles. QoD, Mekie, Swapnaa, Iam, Hirak, Manix, Rajesh and an anon got it. Well done.

Aside: This question was not asked keeping any of this blog's regular readers in mind. Any similarity to moustaches (balding or otherwise) is purely coincidental.

Question - 177

Today's question is courtesy Swapnaa. Identify all the visuals and the common thread that connects them.

Answer: The visuals show all Nobel laureates who did their major work at Bell labs. Clockwise from the top left, they are Davisson-Germer, Bardeen-Brattain-Shockley, Phil Anderson, Steven Chu, Stormer-Laughlin-Tsui and Penzias-Wilson. Manix, Hirak and Rajesh got it. Well done.

Question - 176

In the first visual, the man tied to the mast is the captain of the ship and he has explicitly instructed his men to tie him up. He did so in order to be among the very few mortals to have encountered the ladies' (shown circling the ship) craft and live to tell the tale. The man in the second visual (the one in the red robes) went one step further and beat the ladies in their own craft. Identify all and the incidents referred to. Also, this has given rise to a phrase in the English language. Identify that as well.

Answer: The first painting shows Odysseus listening to the songs of the sirens. The sirens were women in Greek mythology who lured sailors to their deaths with their irresistible melodies. Odysseus plugged his men's ears with beeswax and tied himself to the mast to be able to hear their song without endangering his life. When Jason and the Argonauts had to cross paths with the sirens, Orpheus (second visual), the greatest singer in all Greek mythology, sang his own tune to drown out the sirens thus saving the Argonauts. The English phrase that refers to this myth is siren song which means an appeal that is hard to resist but if heeded leads to bad things. Mekie, Raghu, QoD, Hirak, Rahul Trivedi, Manix, Rajesh and an anon got it. Well done.

Question - 175

Person in visual 1 started it all off. Person in visual 2 gave it his official blessing. Visual 3 shows a famous response to it. Visual 4 is a work of fiction that is partially concerned with it. Identify all the visuals and the connecting thread.

Answer: Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha (Visual 1) declared Indira Gandhi's election as invalid which led Indira to persuade President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed (Visual 2) to declare emergency. Visual 3 is the famous blank editorial that Ramnath Goenka published in the Indian Express as a response to the censorship of the press. Rushdie's midnight's children (visual 4) claims the emergency is just a distraction for Indira to destroy the 1001 special midnight's children. Rajesh, Raghu, Schmetterling and Hirak got it. Well done.

Question - 174

The second and third visuals deal with widely different phenomena (in completely different fields) but are both named after the first visual. Identify the name and the reasoning behind it.

Answer: The phenomenon is named after Goldilocks of Goldilocks and the three bears story (first visual). The Goldilocks zone in astronomy is the zone where it is neither too hot nor too cold ("just right" like in the story). A Goldilocks economy is one that does not face the threat of inflation or recession (again "just right"). Iam, Adi, Mekie, Sriraam, Hirak, Schmetterling, Swapnaa, Rajeev and two anons got it. Well done.

Question - 173

Today's question is courtesy Manix. One western great is playing with two eastern greats. Identify all.

Answer: The people are Yehudi Menuhin (violin), Ravi Shankar (sitar) and Alla Rakha (tabla). Rahul Trivedi, Keshav, Hirak, Rajesh, Arvind, QoD and Rajeev got it. Well done.

Update: Regular updates will resume from tonight. I missed Sunday's update as well thanks to a combination of laziness and the Federer/Cardinals double heartbreaks.

Question - 172

The blog needs a little color if only in black and white. Identify the ladies and also what they are doing.

Answer: The ladies are Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell imprinting their hands in wet cement in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Iam, Manix, Rahul Trivedi, Swapnaa, Keshav, Hirak, J, Schmetterling, Rajesh, Ashwin and an anon got it. Well done.

Question - 171

The first visual is the cover of a book detailing the story of the guy in the top left of the cover and how the three people at the bottom (including him) were part of a very significant moment in history. The second visual involves the same three people (the guy in the top left of visual 1 is in the coffin and the other two are the pallbearers) and shows the respect the pallbearers had for the dead man. Identify all three and the historic occasion they scripted together.

Answer: The people are athletes Tommie Smith, John Carlos and Peter Norman who were the medal winners in the 200m event at the 1968 Mexico city Olympics. During the American national anthem, Smith and Carlos raised their fists in their now famous power salute while Norman wore a badge in their support. All three men came under severe flak for mixing sports with politics and suffered heavy repercussions. Norman's story is especially tragic considering he is an outsider to the situation. Read wiki for more details. Iam, Anand, Keshav, Hirak, Swapnaa, Ashwin, Schmetterling, Adi, Sha, Rajesh, Rajeev and an anon got it. Well done.

Question - 170

What used to be based out of the place in visual 1 is now based in the place shown in visual 2. Identify both places.

Answer: The visuals are Potala palace in Lhasa, Tibet and McLeod Ganj, a suburb of Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh. They are the former and current locations of the Tibetian government in exile and the Dalai Lama. Hirak, QoD, Mekie, an anon, RajeshK, Arvind, Manix, Anshul, Iam, Adi, Schmetterling and Rajesh got it. Well done.

Question - 169

Connect the lady in the top two visuals to the visual on the top right. The visual in the bottom is somewhat tangentially related to those in the top three. Identify that one as well.

Answer: The lady is Patty Hearst, the granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst who was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) whose symbol is in the far right. In what is considered a case of Stockholm syndrome, Hearst turned sympathetic to SLA's motives and robbed banks with them (first visual). Her prison sentence was commuted by Carter and she was granted a presidential pardon by Clinton. The visual at the bottom is from the movie Network which spoofs the media drama surrounding the Hearst kidnapping. Iam, Rajeev , Hirak and Manix got it. Well done. A picture of Orson Welles at the bottom as Rajeev suggested would have been a nice radial connect (Patty Hearst is the granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst who was famously played by Welles in Citizen Kane).

Question - 168

The discovery shown in visual 1 (top left) was so immense it was introduced in the case argued by the two gents in the bottom left, it caused the work of the man in the top right to be greeted with much skepticism and was used in a seminal book by the founder of the organization whose logo is shown in the bottom right. Identify the discovery and all the visuals.

Answer: The discovery is the Piltdown man, one of the biggest scientific hoaxes ever. It was so influential (partly because it was discovered in Eurasia and it was a comforting feeling to many that mankind's origins were there and not in Africa) that real discoveries such as Raymond Dart's Taung Child (top right) were ridiculed for not being in accordance with it. Clarence Darrow used it as evidence in the Scopes monkey trial (bottom left) some 10 years before the hoax was exposed and L. Ron Hubbard (bottom right is the logo of scientology) used it in his "influential" Scientology: A History of Man. Despite being up for 2 days, Hirak was the only one to attempt and crack this. Bravo.

Question - 167

Identify this beautiful painting, the painter and a term that the event depicted gave rise to.

Answer: The painting is The incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio and the term is "Doubting Thomas" in reference to people skeptical of something. Arvind, Manix, Iam, Swapnaa, Rajesh, Hirak and an anon got it. Well done.

Question - 166

Today's question is courtesy Rajesh. Identify the instrument and its creator.

Answer: This is Dr. Lippold Haken, an ECE professor at the University of Illinois who built the continuum fingerboard shown in the second visual. Hirak and Iam got it. Well done.

Question - 165

The people in the first two visuals acted as guides to the person in the third visual through the places shown in the fourth visual. Identify all.

Answer: Virgil and Beatrice guided Dante through hell and heaven respectively in the medieval classic Divine Comedy. Arvind, Hirak, Schmetterling and Keshav got it. Well done.

Question - 164

The person in the top left created a sculpture parts of which are shown. Also one part which turned out to be very controversial is not shown. Identify him, the sculpture and the controversy.

Answer: David Cerny, the eccentric Czech sculptor who decided to make fun of all European countries in the EU with his Entropa. Each country is portrayed here in a less than flattering light. The controversy was that Bulgaria was portrayed as a squat toilet which really enraged the Bulgarian government. Divya, Iam, Arvind, Raghu, Schmetterling, Hirak, Manix, Keshav, J, Rajesh, Vijay and an anon got it. Well done.

Question - 163

Shown is the country, its rulers, stamps and coins. Identify the country.

Answer: The principality of sealand, a micronation off the coast of Britain. The second picture shows the "monarchs" Roy and Joan Bates. For a micronation, it seems remarkably well known with 17 people answering correctly. Vijay, Rahul Trivedi, Manix, Iam, Raghu, Schmetterling, Hirak, Anshul, Rajeev, Swapnaa, Arvind, Divya, Rajesh, Keshav, Adi and 2 anons got it. Well done.

Question - 162

When and where was this picture taken? (nothing profound about the question. Just a freaky coincidence).

Answer: This is Vishy playing Kasparov atop World trade center on September 11, 1995. Arvind, an anon, Anand, Raghu, Manix, Vijay, Adi, Iam, Hirak, Rajeev, J, Divya and Keshav got it. Well done.

Question - 161

The guy in the top left designed the apparatus shown in the bottom left. The person in the right is named after the person in the left because of certain similarities between them. Identify all.

Answer: The top left is B.F. Skinner, a renowned behavioral psychologist who designed the skinner box shown in the bottom to study rodent behavior and the character on the right is from Pixar's Ratatouille who is named Skinner as a reference to the psychologist. Vijay, Anshul, an anon, Manix, Rahul Trivedi, Hirak, Swapnaa, Schmetterling, Adi and Arvind got this. Well done.

Question - 160

Connect the painting, the comic and the movie poster. The connect has been in the news recently.

Answer: The connect is Andrew Wyeth, the painter who passed away yesterday. The first picture is his muse Helga whom he painted on multiple occasions, his art features prominently in Peanuts and Snoopy is a collector of his paintings, Manoj Night Shyamalan's Village was shot in and around Wyeth's house and the movie's color schemes were inspired from his paintings. Arvind, Schmetterling, Iam, Anshul + Nithya and Vijay got it. Well done.

Question - 159

The man is posing with his prized possession. Identify him.

Answer: This is the famous psychic Uri Geller who shot to international fame for his supposed psychokinetic spoon-bending capabilities. The Cadillac is adorned with various bent silverware including spoons and such given to him by celebrities such as John Lennon. Vijay, Anshul and Schmetterling got it. 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 - 157

The statue in the first visual depicts the etymology behind the name of this empire whose extent at its peak is shown in the second visual. Identify the empire.

Answer: The empire is the Hoysala empire that takes its name from Sala, the warrior killing ("hoy" in old Kannada) a tiger. Read the comments for more information. Vijay, Divya, Arvind, Swapnaa, Manix, Rajesh, Raghu, Ashwin and Rajeev got it. Well done.

Question - 156

This model is named for the person shown in the first visual. The person shown in the second visual perpetrated the largest instance of this model in history. The person in the third visual fell victim to it and in fact, killed himself last month. Identify all people. Note: The word model might not describe the answer best but is used here for reasonable obfuscation.

Answer: The people are Charles Ponzi, an Italian swindler at the turn of the 20th century, Bernard Madoff, former chairman of NASDAQ who was arrested last December for investor fraud and the French billionaire Rene-Thierry Magon de Villehuchet who committed suicide after he lost all his money to Madoff. The connect ofcourse is the Ponzi scheme, a form of pyramid scheme first successfully pulled off by Ponzi himself. Vijay, Sinndhuja, Arvind, Hirak, Raghu, Manix, Anshul, Iam (who also laments my unfortunate choice of words), Divya, Swapnaa, Rajesh and Adi (barely in time :)) got it. Well done.

Question - 155

The picture of the two friends talking to each other now enjoys iconic status in their country after they were assassinated within two months of each other. (The first visual is a poster showing the picture while the second is a plaque in the international airport of their city). The third visual shows the crowning point of their life's work. Identify the visuals.

Answer: The two people are Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone, two Italian anti-mafia magistrates who tried to bring the Mafia to justice and were assassinated as a result. The third visual shows Tommaso Buscetta, a mafioso who turned state's witness. His trial led to the conviction of 360 people associated with the Mafia. Swapnaa, Arvind, Vijay, Iam and Divya got it. Read their comments for more details. Well done.

Question - 154

Connect the visuals. (The connect isn't completely football related though recognizing the players would help). The question (not a great one at that) is for non-football enthusiasts as well.

Answer: The people are Troy Polamalu of the Steelers, Ladanian Tomlinson of the Chargers, director David Fincher (Se7en, Fight club) and Eli Wallach (the Ugly) from the movie The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The connect is the new Nike Fate ad directed by Fincher featuring the two players. The background to the ad is Ennio Morricone's "Ecstasy of gold" which is the BGM of the famous graveyard scene at the end of the movie. Ashwin and an anon got it. Well done.

Question - 153

The landscape shown is man-made and cover more than 4000 square miles. Where are they located?

Answer: Banaue rice terraces in Philippines. Divya, Arvind, Sinndhuja, Rajesh and Swapnaa got it. Well done. Like Adi says, there is nothing distinctive in the picture to distinguish it from any other step farming place but I thought it looked real impressive.

Question - 152

Identify.

Answer: Will Shortz, the crossword creator/solver extraordinaire. Raghu, Iam, Anshul, Hirak, Rajesh and Swapnaa got it. Well done.

Question - 151

Connect the map on the left to the visuals on the right.

Answer: The connect is the Iditarod trail Sled dog race which commemorates the courageous 1925 serum run to Nome. The map shows the trail, the statue is that of Balto, a sled dog who delivered the serum in the last leg of the journey and Todd Palin is a 4-time champion of the Tesoro Iron dog competition the route of which follows large parts of the trail. Maybe the Palin connect is a bit of a stretch and it pushed a lot of people in slightly wrong directions. Apologies for that. Also, another perfectly valid Todd Palin connect would have been that the race originated in Wasilla which is where the Palins are from. Swapnaa, Raghu and Rajesh were bang on while Sinndhuja, Arvind, Divya and Iam were thereabouts. Well done.

Question - 150

The people are from different eras but are connected by a common theme which has bestowed them with memorable nicknames. Identify them, the nicknames and the theme that connects them. (The top right visual doesn't quite fit the theme but nonetheless has a memorable nickname.)

Aside: Thanks to all of you for your continued support of the blog through 150 questions. Please let me know if you have any suggestions, ideas, grouses etc about the blog. Also, if you enjoy the blog, please spread the word to any one you know who might enjoy it.

Answer: These people are radio broadcasters during different wars who did propaganda against their own country and acquired derisory nicknames due to such activities. They are (from L to R, top to bottom) Tokyo Rose, Axis Sally, Baghdad Bob (he is an exception in that his propaganda wasn't against his birth country), Lord Haw-Haw, Hanoi Jane (this is the actress Jane Fonda) and Hanoi Hannah. Manix, Raghu, Divya, Rajesh and Shyam + Swapnaa got it. Well done.

Question - 149

Identify all visuals and connect.

Answer: The connect is Captain Alfred Dreyfus and the Dreyfus affair. The first visual shows Dreyfus being cashiered, the second visual is the poster for the movie The life of Emile Zola and the third is Julia Louis Dreyfus from Seinfeld. Emile Zola wrote a rousing open letter to the French president titled J'accuse in which he accused the government of Anti-Semitism and wrongful imprisonment of Dreyfus. The actress is a distant relative of the Captain. Vijay, Raghu, Manix, Divya, Swapnaa and Iam 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 - 147

Man in visual 1 did something for the man in visual 2 the blueprint of which is shown in visual 3. Visual 4 was inspired by this work. Identify all visuals and connect.

Answer: Frank Lloyd wright designed the famous Fallingwater house for Edgar Kaufman Sr. The house and Wright were the inspiration for the title character being an architect in Ayn Rand's Fountainhead. Arvind, Iam, Manix, Rajesh and Vijay got it. Well done.

Question - 146

Identify the 4 visuals and the phrase that connects them.

Answer: The pictures are the assassination of Lincoln, Julius Caesar, Timothy McVeigh (the culprit behind the Oklahoma city bombing) and the seal of Virginia. The connecting phrase is Sic Semper Tyrannis (thus always to tyrants) - it was supposedly said by Brutus while assassinating Caesar and by Booth while assassinating Lincoln, the seal bears the phrase and McVeigh had a T-shirt with this slogan when arrested. Iam, Arvind, Raghu, Manix, Adi, Harish and Rajesh got it. Well done.