March 4
Quick Hits
Questions
The “Crime Index” is a metric that combines different major crimes - like murder, rape, and robbery - into a single number in order to provide a sense of how dangerous a locale may be. As of 2026, what capital of KwaZulu-Natal Province has one of the highest numbers (if not the highest) in the world on that index, with over 84 such crimes per 100,000 citizens? It is somewhat ironic, then, that what is likely South Africa’s most notable monument to that great apostle of nonviolence, Mahatma Gandhi, is located in this city (see below). That is because it was this city where Gandhi was forcefully removed from a train in 1893, triggering his awakening to the discrimination that he faced because of his skin color and prompting him to develop his philosophy of nonviolent resistance.
A much-anticipated production on Broadway that begins this week is a play, written by Mark Rosenblatt, about Roald Dahl’s difficult personality, demonstrated primarily through the anti-Semitic beliefs that he espoused following Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Starring John Lithgow as Dahl, the play already had won three Olivier Awards following its 2025 West End run. What is the name of the play? In the context of Dahl’s own work, this title is a noun that could be applied to several characters, like the Meatdripper and the Maidmasher, from a 1982 work, as well as serving as an adjective that notably appears elsewhere in his corpus.
Attached are three song clips. The songs are by bands that have numbers in their names. If you add up those numbers, what number do you then get? That answer, if said a certain way, also names Len Barry’s biggest hit.
This man’s 1953 ascent of Nanga Parbat is not only interesting because he was the first person known to have climbed that particular mountain, but in doing so he became the first person to ascend any eight-thousander by himself. Perhaps even more impressively, he did it without supplemental oxygen, and it was the first time that this man even had visited the Greater Ranges of Asia. Four years later, he joined a team of three others to become the first to ascend another eight-thousander, Broad Peak in the Karakoram Range - thus making him the first to ascend two such mountains. Both expeditions serve as examples of his preferred “alpine style” of mountaineering, which focuses on small teams climbing without the use of porters. Who is the legendary Austrian mountaineer (shown)?
The histology slide shown has a particular region of the brain highlighted in green, oddly, with the white space near it being the fourth ventricle. Neurons projecting from this location go to many different parts of the brain, which makes sense given its importance in the wakefulness cycle and its involvement in the body’s stress response. This region gets its most distinctive histological feature from neuromelanin that accumulates secondary to the polymerization of norepinephrine - which also makes sense, given that this location is the primary area of synthesis of norepinephrine in the brain. What is the name for this particular region of the pons?
Shaquille O’Neal, Jim Gaffigan, Taraji P. Henson, and Tony Yayo are among the guests to be consigned to the “Wall-Most Made It” (originally called the “Wall of Shame”) on what? Yayo, in fact, was the first guest ever on this program, where he offered an (abbreviated) conversation on “Shmoney Dance & Eminem’s Taco Habit.”
This person was the daughter of August, a distiller and starch magnate, and Serena, a social leader who happened to be the grandniece of Joseph Pulitzer. This woman married Baron Wolfgang von Bachofen-Echt in 1921, converting to Protestantism following that, but she converted back to Judaism after their 1934 divorce. That divorce must have been amicable, as a former brother-in-law who so happened to also be a Nazi official went along with paperwork that stated that this person’s father was not August, but instead a notable artist. That maneuver allowed this person to live in Vienna, despite the Nazi occupation, until her 1944 death. Her unusual biography became a subject of discussion once again following events in November 2025. Which person?
Shown are some of the early works of what person, then practicing as a photographer? Beginning in 1950, she used an old storefront on Rue Daguerre as a place to develop and house her work. Indeed, a later work, in another genre, called Daguerréotypes, was created at the same location, as she was caring for her two-year-old child at the time, and could not travel far from home.
Shown are the remains of the castle located in what comune of Reggio Emilia, Italy? The castle was built in AD 940 by Adalbert Atto, a Lombard, and it mostly was destroyed over 300 years later during a local revolt, but in between it served as an important stronghold in northern Italy. The most famous person to rule from the castle likely was Matilda, the “Great Countess,” who helped set in motion actions that later were referenced in a notable quotation said during a different controversy, one that involved, among other laws, the 1871 “Pulpit Paragraph” and the 1872 Jesuit Law.
The recently deceased Greg Brown was a guitarist who founded a band of this name along with John McCrea and Vince DiFiore. A 2022 album composed by Joseph Foreman and named for a kind of this alleges that this kind of thing was ogled by police, with the album going on to skewer numerous employees of Adams County, Ohio as retribution. A recent Broadway hit involves Robin and Dougal getting to know each other as they deliver a kind of this. The Moravian dish Valašský frgál is one of these that traditionally is flavored with pear and curd cheese; the medovik is one of these popular in Russia and surrounding countries that alternates honey with smetana; and the Portuguese Pão de Ló de Ovar gets its flavor from its heavy use of egg yolks and its volume from air added during mixing, which means that it does not use yeast. Described above are all examples of what?
