Scientific Roots Trivia Quiz

Answer: Scotland

Fleming was born in Ayrshire in 1881 and trained as a doctor in London. Initially intending to become a surgeon, Fleming found his calling in the then new field of bacteriology. In 1921 he discovered the benefits of lysozyme, an enzyme found in many body fluids, and which he proved to be a natural antiseptic.

The discovery for which he is best remembered is penicillin, when he found a particular mould inhibited the growth of bacteria. Fleming himself was unable to turn the discovery into a usable drug - that discovery is covered later in this quiz - but his initial work and his realisation of its potential paved the way for numerous lives to be saved.

Answer: Scotland

Baird was born in northwestern Scotland in 1888 and was the son of a Church of Scotland minister. He moved to Hastings, on England's south coast, in 1923 and began working on an early version of a television. Baird proved that it was possible to transmit pictures by breaking them down into lines.

He also became the first man to demonstrate colour television pictures. Although the BBC later chose to use a system developed by Marconi, Baird has his place in history as the first man to demonstrate that sending pictures over a distance was possible.

Answer: Scotland

Watt was born in Scotland in 1736 and is primarily remembered for his contributions to the use of steam in engineering. Thomas Newcomen had created an early steam engine for use in tin mines and Watt was repairing a version of this engine when he realised that it wasted a lot of the steam power it produced. This led Watt to come up with the idea of the condenser, although he put his work aside while working as a land surveyor.

In the 1770s, Watt moved to Birmingham where he worked in partnership with Matthew Boulton. The duo created steam engines for use in various production industries, setting in motion what was to become the Industrial Revolution.

Answer: Scotland

Napier was born in Edinburgh in 1550 and is probably best known to many of us as the man who discovered the uses of logarithms. He was also a landowner and was known as the Laird of Merchiston. As well as being a mathematician, Napier was also an astronomer and physicist with his other achievements including the so-called 'Napier's Bones', a method of calculation using rods, an early type of slide rule. Apart from his scientific skills, Napier was a staunch Protestant and met the future King James I of England to persuade him to avoid any alliance with the Catholic Church.

Answer: Commonwealth

New Zealander Ernest Rutherford is often called the 'father of nuclear physics' for his pioneering work. He won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1908 for his work on radioactive substances. In 1895 he received a Research Fellowship at the UK's Cambridge University where he worked with J J Thomson, himself a Nobel Laureate in Physics.

Rutherford moved to Canada and continued his work at Montreal's McGill University before returning to England in 1907 initially in Manchester and back to Cambridge in 1919. Of all the scientists in this section, Rutherford's life encompassed much of the Commonwealth.

Answer: Commonwealth

Banting was born in Ontario, Canada, in 1891 and qualified as a a medical practitioner, initially specialising in orthopaedics. He developed an interest in the disease diabetes. It had already been established that the pancreas was the organ which created a hormone which controlled diabetes but efforts to isolate it had failed.

Given facilities to investigate further by Professor John Macleod and the assistance of Charles Best, Banting found a way to isolate the insulin producing islets of Langerhans and extract insulin from them. Originally, insulin was extracted from dogs before it was established that insulin from other animals was as effective. Macleod and Banting were awarded the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine - each of them split the prize money with the assistants who had worked with them, Best and James Collip.

Answer: Commonwealth

Born in Australia, in Adelaide, Florey was a pharmacologist who was instrumental in turning Alexander Fleming's accidental discovery of penicillin into a pure form and a usable drug to treat infections. His work was carried out at Oxford University where he had studied at Magdalen College after moving to England.

He carried out his work on penicillin with Ernst Chain, a German-born biochemist and Florey and Chain, along with Fleming, were the joint winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945.

Answer: Commonwealth

South African born Brenner was a biologist who is recognised for his contributions to genetics. He qualified as a doctor in his home country before carrying out postgraduate studies at Oxford University. Much of his research took place in the USA, notably at the Salk Institute. Brenner was also among the first scientists to see the DNA model created by Watson and Crick.

He received a joint Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with the American H. Robert Horvitz and the British John Sulston in recognition of their work on genetics and cell death.

Answer: England

Joseph Priestley was an early English scientist who was born near Leeds in 1733. He was also a minister of the Anglican Church. He met Benjamin Franklin, who encouraged him to continue with his scientific interests and Priestley made advances in understanding the workings of electricity. His main contribution was in chemistry, especially gases, and he is credited with the discovery of oxygen. In all, he identified ten gases, including nitrogen and ammonia, although they were not known by their current names at the time.

His political views created problems for him as England was fearful of a French style revolution. After being accused of sedition, Priestley travelled to Pennsylvania where he died in 1804.

Answer: England

If it wasn't for Tim Berners-Lee you might not be seeing this quiz at all. Berners-Lee is the man who brought us the internet, the invention which has truly made the world a smaller place and enabled us to keep in touch with people wherever they are located.

Tim was born in London in 1955 and worked in the telecommunications business. He came up with the idea of linking different computers in the early 1990s, when he was a consultant to the CERN project in Switzerland. From that acorn grew the oak tree which is the internet. The list of awards received by Berners-Lee would fill this section, so I'll just give you one - the knighthood he received in 2004.

Answer: England

Lister is remembered for his pioneering work in preventative medicine. He was born in Essex in 1827 and was a qualified surgeon. Among his achievements are the recognition that cleanliness was key to preventing infection and following Pasteur's and Koch's then revolutionary theory of germ disease.

Lister introduced the use of carbolic acid to sterilise surgeon's hands and instruments, drastically reducing infection rates. He also pioneered the use of microscopes to study samples, establishing histology as a diagnostic tool. Lister became the President of the Royal Society in 1895, succeeding Lord Kelvin in the role.

Answer: England

Joule was born in Salford, now part of Greater Manchester, in 1818. His father was a brewer and Joule managed the business with science as a sideline. His efforts to improve efficiency led him to investigate the use of electricity instead of steam power. What began as a businessman's efforts to save money soon turned to scientific curiosity and Joule began making new discoveries which led to the theory of conservation of energy and the first law of thermodynamics.

He worked with William Thomson, better known as Lord Kelvin, to develop the temperature scale which bears Kelvin's name. Joule himself is remembered in the SI scale as the unit of energy is known as a joule.