May 5
Quick Hits
I figured that I would sneak one more in before the end of the month.
Questions
Attached is an excerpt from the song “Balidan.” Among other things, the lyrics of the song criticize political corruption and ongoing inequality in a particular country. The song is performed by what superlative current head of government?
In one context, “Irma’s injection” was a combination of propyl, propionic acid and trimethylamine given to treat an oropharyngeal infection. It is also the name given by a thinker to something that occurred at Schloss Bellevue on the night of July 23, 1895. Four years later, it would become the first detailed example of a certain thing as discussed in what work?
Shown is a detail from William Hogarth’s 1751 print Gin Lane. The print demonstrates many examples of the asserted evils of consuming gin - including promoting fights, causing madness, and leading to child abandonment (when the children are not murdered by spear!). It is thought that the blind person shown in the detail below became so disabled because the gin that he drank was adulterated with what organic chemical? This chemical is not necessarily dangerous in itself, but it undergoes a dehydrogenation reaction in the human body that converts it into formaldehyde, followed by another reaction which then converts that product into formic acid. Formic acid then inhibits the mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome c oxidase, upon which the optic nerve particularly is dependent. The ultimate result is swelling and damage to that nerve, causing blurred vision followed by irreversible blindness.
Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, a photographer known for her work recording rural American mailboxes and New York City buses, who died on assignment attempting to take a photo of an explosion. Agloe, located in Delaware County, New York, before and after the time a general store of the same name was found there. Apopudobalia, an ancient Roman sport said to have anticipated modern day association football. Dag Henrik Esrum-Hellerup, a Danish composer for the flute, whose opera Alys og Elvertøj was said to have inspired Smetana. The above most notably have what in common? A more recent example of this phenomenon is seen with bixonimania, noted by a team of researchers from California’s Asteria Horizon University in an April 2024 post on Medium to be a disorder where sore eyes and “periorbital hyperpigmentation” develop following excessive screen time.
Last time we talked about the Villa Leopolda. While arguably the most expensive home in Europe, competition elsewhere certainly exceeds it in terms of luxuriousness. In particular, a palace some 2.1 million square feet in size has nearly 1,800 rooms, over 250 bathrooms, and 110 garages - the latter so that some 7000 cars can be stored. Its banquet hall holds 5000 people, and it has its own mosque. Shown below and named Istana Nurul Iman, it is the official residence of the man with what name? If you happen to be nearby the palace in the days after the conclusion of Ramadan, you can visit it for free, perhaps even getting to meet this particular person (unless you are female - then you will get to meet his wife).
She is the current record holder for the highest score in both the women’s short program and the free skate, so it is not surprising that she also holds the record for highest total score by a woman in a major skating competition, which she achieved with her 272.71 at the 2021 Rostelecom Cup. What is surprising is that she has these records despite serving a four-year doping suspension that ended in December 2025 - a suspension that wiped out performances at the 2022 European Figure Skating Championship and the 2022 Winter Olympics. Who is this figure skater?
Marie Anne de La Trémoille, princesse des Ursins (shown) was a courtier who acted as de facto ruler of Spain during the early years of that country’s Bourbon Dynasty, essentially acting as an agent of the French crown in that role. Before she became involved in such intrigue, she lived in Italy, with her husband, a duke named Orsini. While living in a castle outside of Rome, she gathered a reputation for opulence, as it was said that she would bathe herself in essence extracted from the Citrus × aurantium plant. This extract would go on to take its name from that castle, and today it still is one of the most important floral oils used in perfumes, as well as one of the rumored ingredients to the secret recipe for Coca-Cola. What is the name of this bitter orange extract?
Shown is what cave, found in the Altai mountains? This cave takes its name from a hermit belonging to the Old Believer Orthodox tradition who lived there in the 18th century. This cave became newsworthy in 2008 because of something found inside of it that later would be linked to the Harbin cranium.
The following two screenshots are from a certain film. Each clip is taken from a scene where a certain song is playing, with the second instance being a piano cover of the original version of song, which is featured in the first scene. What song is being played?
An August 2023 article in Current Biology has the self-evident title “Gadusol is a maternally provided sunscreen that protects [redacted] embryos from DNA damage.” The article details how the chemical gadusol acts as a transparent sunscreen that protects developing embryos of a certain animal from UV-B radiation while not interfering with their natural camouflage. Subsequent research out of China has indicated that gadusol feasibly might be created on an industrial level by genetically modifying E. coli bacteria to produce it. The biggest surprise from the article above may be that the discovery of gadusol only was found relatively recently in a particular animal, as for years that animal has served as a model organism in vertebrate research, especially in the field of developmental biology. Belonging to suborder Cyprinoidei and known more formally as Danio rerio, what is the common name of this animal?
