May 1
Quick Hits
Questions
Relatively few countries have a city that serves as their capital while also not being that country’s largest city. Washington, DC probably is the most famous example of that phenomenon, but another chestnut is that New Delhi is the capital of India - but not even remotely that country’s largest city, as Mumbai’s 12.5 million residents far exceed New Delhi’s 250,000 residents (a 50:1 ratio). That used to the most lopsided ratio for that metric in the world - until what city (of a sort) became the capital of its country in January 2026? Built on a location previously called Djibloho, this planned development (shown) thus far has an estimated population of 2000 - with the city of 300,000 people that it succeeded as national capital having about 150 times the number of residents.
One of the most successful Japanese commanders during World War Two was what general (shown), who led the invasion of Malaysia, including the conquest of Singapore? This “Tiger of Malaya” then would be assigned to the Philippines, where he directed the defense of Luzon, an island which remained contested up until the end of hostilities in August 1945. However, this man may be better known - which is to say, more notorious - because of the legal “standard” that bears his name today. Forces under his command massacred some 50,000 Singaporeans - an event called the Sook Ching massacre - and some 100,000 Filipinos - an event called the Rape of Manila - along with other atrocities, including attacks occurring in the Batanagas Province of Luzon. This general claimed that he could not have controlled the actions of frontline soldiers, an argument which made its way to the United States Supreme Court, who held that he could bear responsibility under the laws of war for the crimes of his subordinates. Pursuant to that, he was found guilty of such crimes and executed in February 1946.
Legend attributes two things of note to this person, with the second thing being directly tied to the first. First, this probably mythical Brahmin, said to be from the village of Lahur, was asked by his king (sometimes named Shirham) to invent a game to entertain that ruler, so this man developed chaturanga - the ancient board game that would be the basis of similar board games, like chess, xiangqi, and shogi. That game was well-received, so King Shirham asked an open-ended question about how this man wanted to be compensated. This man responded by requesting to be paid in grains of wheat, using the spaces on his recently-created game board to determine the amount, with the total amount of grain being calculated by having one grain placed on the first square of the board, the second space having double that amount, the third space having double that second amount - and so on. The astounding result, after 63 rounds of doubling, would be close to 18.45 quintillion grains of wheat - equal to the world’s wheat production for about 2000 years. Who was this legendary person, whose clever proposal serves as a humorous example of the power of exponential growth?
You probably have already filed away that Sabastian Sawe became the first person ever to complete a marathon conducted during standard racing conditions in under two hours, when he did so at the 2026 London Marathon held last month. But you should also file away the name of what other runner, who joined him in that accomplishment when he finished an agonizing 11 seconds behind Sawe in that race, completing the marathon in 1:59:41? If you would like to feel even more paltry about your own accomplishments, note that this Ethiopian was running in his first ever competitive marathon, meaning that he can console himself by knowing that he easily holds the record for the fastest time ever in a debut marathon performance.
Consider the following:
The concept that was discovered by Frederick Griffith during his 1928 experiments on Streptococcus pneumoniae, later confirmed to occur because of DNA, with that discovery thanks to the results of the 1944 Avery-MacLeod-McCarty experiment.
The geological finding displayed below, showing how the Earth’s crust is not destroyed when the process depicted occurs, as the tectonic plates move horizontally. Despite that, the result of that action still can be quite destructive, with the San Andreas one being a famous example of it.
The device demonstrated below, whose operation is explained by Faraday’s law of induction.
The term for a function that alters an “object” - such as a shape or a graph - by changing it in some regard while preserving a specific property. The mathematical field of harmonic analysis exists because an eponymous example of this is capable of decomposing a complex signal into a series of sine waves, with those waves then being able to be analyzed in terms of their frequencies.
What verb in particular is associated with each item described above?
Released in March, this film already is the second highest-grossing Indian film of all time (behind Dangal) in terms of worldwide gross, as well as the third highest-grossing film just within India (trailing Baahubali 2: The Conclusion and Pushpa 2: The Rule). What film (shown), itself a sequel, stars Ranveer Singh as Jaskirat, an agent working undercover in Karachi? The film’s subtitle likely references the response taken to a personal tragedy that affected Jaskirat, as well as to the “26/11” attacks that occurred in Mumbai in 2008.
This word, if split into two words, can reference a riverfront promenade that starts at the Governor Nicholls Street Wharf and ends at the Aquarium of the Americas, with Jackson Square being one of the attractions found along it. Otherwise, this word references something that first entered national consciousness on March 25, 1983, when it was seen during the television special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever - though it probably goes back to something called the “Stepping on the Puppy's Tail” that was seen at minstrel shows, with Jeffrey Daniel of Shalamar more proximally inspiring the most famous performer of this to first perform this. What, exactly?
Working with the University of California-Berkeley Linguistics Department, this organization announced in November 2025 that it had found evidence that communication amongst sperm whales more closely resembles that of human communication than previously thought. The paper released, titled “Vowel- and Diphthong-Like Spectral Patterns in Sperm Whale Codas,” argues that sperm whales communicate through sounds that alternate diphthongs with two “acoustic calls” that appear to function as vowels. By what name is the research organization behind that paper usually known? When its acronym is fully expanded, this organization’s name explicitly reflects how it views its work as an act of translation, but the acronym itself also is very deliberately a punning reference to another notable research effort that explores unknown, potentially fantastic possibilities.
Since something similar worked so well last time: first, provide the surname of the sociologist whose seemingly prescient works include 1970’s The Coming of Post-Industrial Society and 1976’s The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. Second, A Strange Loop, Jagged Little Pill, Tootsie, Once, and Passing Strange are examples of works that won “Best” this for a Musical at the Tony Awards, despite not winning Best Score. Third, provide the surname of the psychiatrist and neuroscientist who shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Arvid Carlsson and Paul Greengard for their work on signal transduction within the nervous system, with this man’s work in particular focusing on the physiological changes associated with memory formation. I have just said by other means what phrase, which also names a John Van Druten play adapted into a 1958 motion picture, with both of those works taking their name from a protocol said to have been promulgated by Pope Zachary for how a group of church officials should go about a particularly serious and severe ritual?
In 1994, British artist Lubaina Himid debuted a series of 26 installation pieces that depicted other artists that she felt blazed the way for her own work. First below is Himid’s self-evident depiction of Frida Kahlo. Which artist was Himid portraying in the second work below?
