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Internet Scavenger Hunt #11 Answers
Here are the answers to the eleventh Internet Treasure Hunt, brought to you by WebLens Search Portal. For this and other Internet Scavenger Hunt questions, see the Hunt Index.
What island blew up in August, 1883, spreading dust and debris for thousands of miles and provoking earthquakes and tidal waves that caused tremendous destruction and loss of life? Krakatoa (sometimes spelled Krakatau) is, of course, the island that blew up in August 1883. The island exploded with the force of a 100 megaton bomb, spreading dust and debris for thousands of miles and provoking earthquakes and tidal waves that killed 36,000 people. This answer proved easy to obtain. Most readers searched on the keywords island, August, 1883, and explosion, volcano, or disaster.
What is the meaning of the word pizzicato? The word pizzicato means "plucking the strings of a musical instrument instead of drawing a bow across them." This answer was also easy to obtain, if you knew where to look. Some readers used Alta Vista or another search engine, but encountered numerous sites about a musical group called Pizzicato Five. One reader reported scanning 39 sites about this group before he came to one that provided a definition. Here's where the exclusion operator can be helpful. Placing a minus sign (or in some search engines, the word NOT) before an unwanted word like Five would exclude these hits and shorten your list. Even better, go straight to Hypertext Webster, as many readers evidently did.
What popular food product is obtained from a highly poisonous root that locals call manioc? I probably should have worded this question more carefully. Most readers correctly reported that tapioca is the popular food product obtained from a highly poisonous root called manioc. One or two readers, however, described manioc-derived food products as they are prepared and used in indigenous cultures. In fact, manioc is also the source of cassava, arrowroot, and a flour-like substance. The question should have specified a popular North American food product. Apologies. I allowed the more exotic answers. Live and learn.
At what age did Mahatma Gandhi marry and what was his wife's name? Mahatma Gandhi married his wife, Kasturba (sometimes spelled Kasturbai) when he was thirteen. This question was a giveaway. Most readers solved it by searching on "Mahatma Gandhi" and the word wife or biography.
When and where was the first Blue Bird school bus made? Another giveaway. The first Blue Bird school bus was built in 1927 in Fort Valley, Georgia - a fact that proved dead easy to verify with a simple search on the words Blue Bird and bus.
Who was the last reigning queen of the Hawaiian Islands and how did her rule end? Several readers found determining the name of the last reigning queen of the Hawaiian Islands a trickier proposition. Most people searched on some combination of the words Hawaii, and Queen, history or royalty to discover that Queen Lydia Kamakaeha Kaolamalii Liliuokalani was forced by American business interests to abdicate her throne in 1893. She yielded her throne under protest to avoid bloodshed.
What alcoholic beverage consists solely of equal parts Scotch and Drambui? This question proved challenging for several readers, mainly because drink recipes are inconsistent regarding proportions of ingredients. The vast majority of readers reported that the Rusty Nail calls for equal parts of Scotch and Drambui. A few people found sites specifying these two ingredients in unequal proportions, and thus offered a drink called a Rusty Spike as an alternative. Since the Web is inconsistent here, I allowed both answers.
What is the name of the smallest bone in the human body? The smallest bone in the human body is called the stapes, or stirrup. One of three bones found in the middle ear, it's about the size of a grain of rice. Most readers discovered this by searching on some combination of the phrases "smallest bone" and "human body". Some readers reported good results using the phrase "smallest bone in the human body" in its entirety. The reader who reported the most difficulty with this question (of all things, a physician!) observed that he was getting nowhere searching on the words bones and ears until he added the word smallest. This demonstrates the importance of being as explicit as possible in the wording of your query. The more search terms you specify, the shorter the results list.
What travels at approximately 186,000 miles per second? Everyone knows, of course, that light travels at 186,000 miles per second, and the Web yielded up this fact with little difficulty for anyone. Most readers searched on the number 186,000 plus "miles per second." One reader searched on "speed of light" and another on lightspeed. All yielded the desired result.
What two mammals lay eggs? This question was a giveaway. Everyone's heard of the Duckbilled Platypus, the oddity from Down Under that lays eggs, right? I thought I could stump you when it came to identifying the second mammal with these strange reptilian attributes. I was wrong. As virtually everyone correctly reported, the Spiny Anteater, or Echidna, shares these strange features. Both are members of the Monotreme family of mammalia. Most readers searched on the phrase "mammals that lay eggs." Some people, on discovering that the Platypus was a monotreme, then searched on that term to find the second answer. One reader specified dinosaurs as the second mammal - an answer I found amusing until further checking exposed considerable controversy about whether some dinosaurs in fact bore live young.