Quizzes & Puzzles 8
Some new problems with which to exercise the brain. But first a look at answers and solutions to Quizzes & Puzzles 7. New problems below the image.
Answer to Quiz 7:1
“In legend, dragons were creatures of heat. What, according to Medieval lore, would they need in order to cool down?”
The answer is elephant's blood, which was thought to be cold. Several old sources describe the enmity between dragons and elephants in India and Ethiopia, and how they often came to fight, sometimes a fight leading to mutual death.
In the 1st century, Pliny the Elder wrote in his "Natural History":
"The dragons, it is said, are of such vast size that they can swallow the whole of the elephant's blood; consequently the latter, being thus drained, falls to the [...] [ground] exhausted, while the dragon, intoxicated with the draught, is crushed beneath it and so shares its fate."
As late as in the 13th century, Bartholomaeus Anglicus wrote in "De proprietatibus rerum":
"The cause why the dragon desireth his [the elephant's] blood, is coldness of the elephant's blood, by which the dragon desireth to cool himself."
Many sources also discuss the pigment that is a result of soil soaked with dragon's blood, or sometimes a mix of elephant's and dragon's blood. It has, they claim, various valuable properties, some of them medical. Pliny calls it "Indian cinnabar" or just "dragon's blood".
A peculiar item associated with dragons is Dracontites, a stone it is said to have in its brain. It has magical properties and is considered a gem if it is removed from the head of a living dragon.
(The English translation of Pliny is quoted from "The Elephant in Medieval Legend and Art", London 1919; and of Bartholomaeus Anglicus from "Medieval Lore of Bartholomaeus Anglicus", London 1905.)
You can find my articles about dragons here.
Answer to Quiz 7:2
“Who was the Albanian general of the Turkish Ottoman army who was sent to Egypt in 1801, later to become Turkish “wali” (governor) there? Egypt's last royal dynasty descended from him.”
This was Muhammad Ali. You can read more about him and his descendants in Ottoman Egypt, Muhammad Ali & his Dynasty.
Answer to Quiz 7:3
“Which is the only snake building nests and incubating its eggs?”
The King Cobra, Ophiophagus hannah. Do not, however, think that all cobras are the same. The word is an abbreviation of "cobra de capelo", a "snake with hood", and has been applied to different snakes. The King Cobra, which strictly is no genuine cobra, lives in India and South East Asia, and is the biggest venomous snake known.
Traditional Chinese medicine uses venom, bile, meat, and skin, and they - especially venom and bile - are used to treat a number of diseases and ailments, not without interesting results.
@TheGuy provided a correct answer.
Answer to Puzzle 7:4
“Can you form a perfectly correct sentence where the word "and" occurs 5 times without any other word in between, and a realistic scenario justifying it?
The sentence should be ....and and and and and.... with one or more other words both before the sequence and after it.”
Consider that you are creating a poster for a shop selling fruit and vegetables. On it, you have plainly written “Fruit and vegetables”. When you show the proprietor of the shop, he is not pleased; he thinks the words are too tight with too little space in between. He says:
“please increase the space between fruit and “and”, and “and” and vegetables.”
Of course there are other possible solutions. This is just one example.
And now some new exercises for brain & memory...
Quiz 8:1
Which now existing terrestrial animal has the largest eyes in the animal kingdom?
Quiz 8:2
One Roman emperor is most known under his nickname, which means "little boot"; who was his father?
Quiz 8:3
Which powerful Germanic tribe during the great migration in Europe got its name from a certain growth of hair? A form of their name is sometimes still associated with banking.
They founded a mighty kingdom in present day Italy, and their name still survives in the name of an Italian region.
Problem 8:4
Referring to my recent article “Symmetry, Asymmetry, Chirality”, can you classify the figure above regarding reflection symmetry, rotation symmetry and chirality? (The image is mine: Copyright © Meleonymica. All Rights Reserved.)
You'll find answers and solutions in the next “Quizzes & Puzzles”.
Quizzes & Puzzles has now its own label in my Index, where all issues of the series can be found.
In my INDEX, you can find all my writings on Read.Cash, sorted by topic.
Copyright © 2022 Meleonymica/Mictorrani. All Rights Reserved.
(Cartoon by Christian Dorn/Pixabay, CC0/Public Domain.)
Selected old articles:
The Relationship Between Cats & Humans – Where did it Begin, and Why?
I never thought dragons needed cooling off I just thought is their nature to breathe fire and be fire, but that's a fun fact actually and 8:1 is that an ostrich or maybe a tarsier those eyes are scary