January 5
Quick Hits
Questions
Willy Lott’s Cottage (shown) is located on a farm in the hamlet of Flatford, Suffolk, with Essex located to opposite of it, on the other side of the water. While the cottage is a Grade I listed building partly because of its association with the “Flatford Mill group” of structures found in the general area, it mainly has that distinction because of its 1821 appearance where?
Paul Celan’s “Todesfuge” (“Death Fugue”) repeatedly mentions this substance as a metaphor, though always “of the dawn” and always colored black. A chapel in Bethlehem, West Bank (first image), is named for this substance, as it was said that some of this substance changed the color of the cave where that chapel is located. There is an (alas, untrue) urban legend that this was added to the water droplets so that the camera would capture them better during Singin’ in the Rain’s most famous scene (second image). In English, the leftover marinade from a dish of ceviche is called the “Tiger’s” this, and it can be consumed separately - sometimes in shot form. Also mentioned in Act 1, Scene 5 of Macbeth and consumed by every winner of the Borg-Warner Trophy since 1936, what is this substance?
Ming, also called Hafrún, was found off the coast of Iceland in 2006. Based on the presumption that the each line on its shell represented a year of growth, Ming would have been 507 years old when it was found, making it the oldest known non-clonal individual animal whose age could be confirmed - though it might have been quite comfortable without that kind of fame, as researchers had to kill poor Ming to make that determination (see what is left of poor Ming below). What is the common name for the specific kind of mollusk that was Ming? Also known as Arctica islandica, this clam can be found in the colder waters of the North Atlantic, as far south as the Carolinas and the Strait of Gibraltar. A. islandica takes that common name from its similarity in appearance to another, more widespread species of clam, Mercenaria mercenaria, with that shared name coming from a word thought to be Narragansett in origin.
A 1949 film directed by Herbert Rappaport and Viktor Eisymont depicts the life of a physicist, with the film culminating in “his” invention of the wireless telegraph. Being a work of Cold War propaganda, the film minimizes the contributions of Oliver Lodge, completely ignores Nikola Tesla, and only makes a slight tip of the hat toward Guglielmo Marconi in asserting that the scientist with this name should be credited with inventing the first radio receiver. Another person with this first and last name had his own rivalry with the West, though by the time that he was famous, the Cold War had ended. This particular person is the only person to win both the 50-meter and 100-meter freestyle races at two consecutive Olympics, leading some to call him the “greatest sprinter swimmer in history.” What first and last name is shared by these two men?
As reflected in their (somewhat) similar names, this dish is thought to have taken its inspiration from a kind of minced meat patty that Dutch colonists brought to Indonesia. The traditional recipe calls for mashed potatoes bound together with shallots and seasoned with garlic and salt, though alternative recipes will make use of other foodstuffs - like cassava, corn, or tofu - as the base. What is the general name for this fritter (shown), a common Indonesian street food and appetizer?
Found at Montana’s Hell Creek formation, a fossil find called “Dueling Dinosaurs” (see the recreation below) for many years had been thought to depict a small Tyrannosaurus rex fighting a ceratopsian. An October 2025 article by Lindsay Zanno and James Napoli in Nature asserts that the theropod dinosaur in that fossil (along with other examples) was not a juvenile T. rex, but an adult form of what other dinosaur? Usually known just by its genus name, this animal had 35 tail vertebrae compared to the T. rex’s 40 to 45, and it had larger finger bones than the T. rex despite its smaller size. With adults typically weighing some 680 kilograms compared to the 8,150 kilograms of an adult T. rex, one could argue that this genus name is a misnomer that is off by around four orders of magnitude.
Shown is the logo for what company, launched by Shayne Coplan in 2020? It makes use of UMA’s “Optimistic Oracle” to decide whether or not events have transpired in a manner that meets a particular “yes” or “no” as asked by a short question. As an example, the question “Maduro out by...?” the end of January was determined by the Oracle to have been answered “yes” (as in that event occurred) based on the “consensus of credible reporting,” which is how one mysterious person recently received $400,000.
The President of South Korea, Lee Jae Myung, and the Prime Minister of Japan, Sanae Takaichi, recently concluded a summit in Nara, Japan. By all accounts, the summit was a success - Takaichi took the unusual step of performing a full ninety-degree bow to Lee, and Lee indulged Takaichi in her love of drumming (she performed in a heavy metal band in college), as the two drummed out karaoke-style renditions of what two songs? The first song has lyrics entirely in English, even though it is the first song to top the Billboard Hot 100 where all the members of its group are from South Korea. The second song is another chart-topping hit with its lyrics mostly in English, though a few lines, such as 밝게 빛나는 우린 (“We shine brightly”), are in Korean.
Shown are three buildings that are located in what world capital?
It’s time for a before, during, and after, meaning that you will combine the following three clues together to form what concatenated four-word name? First, name the Pro Football Hall of Fame tight end who found himself with the football (and a game-winning touchdown) at the end of the “Holy Roller” play from 1978 (a grainy video still is shown first below). Second, the player whose ATP rank peaked at No. 2 in 2022, the same year that he reached the finals of both the French and United States Opens. Finally, the 1987 Ballon d’Or winner who had a minor musical hit the following year with “South Africa,” an anti-apartheid song that he performed with the reggae group Revelation Time (second image).
