Rainy Day Colors Trivia Quiz

Answer: Infrared film

Photographers have used infrared film recreationally for a long time. Using black and white infrared film, foliage looks white. This is because the foliage reflects infrared wavelengths. Water tends to absorb infrared and thus looks dark. Color infrared photos tend to be less predictable. Both black and white and color photos taken with infrared sensors or film tend to have a dreamlike quality.

Answer: Red carnation

Communication using flowers is called floriography. While flowers and flower arrangements have been used to send messages for a very long time, interest in this type of communication increased during the Victorian Age. Arrangements were commonly used to send messages that people felt they could not say in person.

It is pretty well known that a red rose is symbolic of romantic love. However a deep red carnation (or a bouquet of them) can also represent romantic love. A white rose indicated chastity and yellow roses represented friendship. White dittany and blue forget-me-nots can also represent romantic love -- thus, the flowers don't have to be red to indicate romantic feelings.

Answer: Oranges

The top five fruits eaten in the US are apples, bananas, grapes, strawberries and oranges. Surprisingly, despite a lot of orange juice being drunk in the US, oranges are in fifth place. Perhaps drinking juice does not count as fruit consumption though.

There has been a backlash against drinking orange or other fruit juices recently, as many nutritionists feel that they contain as much sugar as colas and less nutrition than whole fruit.

Answer: Yellow fever

Yellow fever is a viral disease spread by mosquitoes. While imprisoned at Fort Jefferson, an epidemic of yellow fever occurred and one of the first to succumb was the doctor at the fort. Dr. Mudd volunteered to take over and did an excellent job of preventing deaths from the disease even though neither the cause of the disease nor how it was spread was known at that time.

When the epidemic was over, one of the officers wrote a petition asking for his pardon, which he received. Fort Jefferson is now a part of Dry Tortugas National Park and there is a plaque commemorating Dr. Mudd at the fort.

Answer: Green light

Red Light, Green Light is a game in which one person is a "stoplight". This person turns their back on the other players who are arranged in a line and says "green light". The players can run forward until the stoplight turns and says "red light". The first person to make it across a line even with the stoplight wins and gets to be the next stoplight. If the stoplight turns and says "red light" and catches a player moving, they are sent back to the original line and have to start over.

Answer: Blue ringed octopus

The blue ringed octopus releases a paralyzing poison, tetrodotoxin. Tetrodotoxin is the toxin found in pufferfish and also many poison dart frogs. The main cause of death is paralysis of the diaphragm and therefore death due to suffocation. As there is no anti-toxin, the treatment is to give artificial respiration and to put the person on ventilation until the toxin is excreted.

Answer: Japanese indigo (Polygonum tinctorium)

Japanese indigo is used to make a vibrant blue dye. The dye is called Sumuko in Japan and the blue color is often called Japan blue. While true indigo (Indigofera tinctoria) was commonly used for blue dye production in the tropics, Japanese indigo was commonly used in colder areas and is still used today. Nowadays indigo is produced artificially for the most part and is primarily used to dye denim for jeans.

Answer: Violets

While the mascot of New York University is a bobcat, their competitive teams are called NYU Violets. The bobcat is pictured wearing a violet collar. The teams became called the Violets because the school colors were violet and white. The football and basketball teams were originally in Division 1, but the school ended the football program in 1953.

In 1971, after an extremely poor season, the basketball team was also terminated. In 1981 basketball was reinstated, but as a Division III team. As of the 2019 season, all NYU intercollegiate sports are in Division III.

Answer: Ultra-violet

Hopefully you know that sunscreen is designed to block ultra-violet (UV) light. This light is invisible to the human eye and also is harmful to DNA. Wearing sunscreen appropriately prevents the UV light in sunlight from entering the skin and damaging the DNA in the skin cells. Damage to the DNA in skin cells can result in cancers of the skin.

Although X-rays and Gamma radiation are also emissions with short wavelengths and can cause DNA damage, they are not the same as ultra-violet radiation.

Answer: At most, 1 million

While we only see colors that are within the visible spectrum (humans see wavelengths between 400 nm and a little over 700 nm), a rainbow contains wavelengths of light that are longer than red (infra-red) and shorter than violet (ultra-violet). In addition, although we typically think of a rainbow as having only seven visible colors, there are around 100 million visible colors that have their own distinct wavelengths and that exist in the visible spectrum. Of those, the human eye can discriminate about one million (pretty good).