New Scientist - USA (2020-03-28)

52 | New Scientist | 28 March 2019

The back pages Puzzles

Quick crossword #54 Set by Richard Smyth Quick quiz #44 Puzzle set by Katie Steckles

#52 Bus change

I am about to get on the bus, but I don’t

have the exact money for the £1 fare. The

driver doesn’t give change so I hand over

more than £1 and they keep the excess.

Once I have sat down, I realise that even

though I didn’t hand over all my coins,

the amount of money I had with me was

the largest possible amount I could have

had in change without being able to pay

£1 (or any multiple of £1) exactly. How

much did I have?

Answer next week

#51 Birthday candles

Solution

If you start by blowing on one candle and

work your way around the cake, blowing on

each candle once, this will put out all the

candles in seven puffs – and this is the

fewest puffs you can do it in. The trick

is to make sure each candle gets blown

on an odd number of times.

1 NASA’s COBE satellite,

launched in 1989, was

the first to make detailed

measurements of what?

2 With what recent

breakthrough in genetics

are the names Emmanuelle

Charpentier and Jennifer

Doudna associated?

3 Rumex obtusifolius

to counteract the effects

of Urtica dioica. What?

4 6, 28, 496, 8128 ...

what sequence

of numbers is this?

5 In organic chemistry,

what is the name of

the process of splitting

complex molecules

such as long-chain

hydrocarbons by breaking

carbon-carbon bonds?

Answers below

Cryptic

Crossword #27

Answers

ACROSS 1/4 Alice Springs,

8 Fission, 9 Bagel, 10 Lei,

11 Upholster, 13 Crewed ,

14 Strafe, 17 Recondite,

19 Gel, 21 Own up,

23 Rainbow,

24/25 Looking glass

DOWN 1 Awful, 2 Inspire,

3 Epicurean, 4 Synchs, 5 Rib,

6 Night, 7 Splurge, 12 Lathering,

13 see 20 , 15 Algebra,

16 Oil rig, 18 Congo,

20/13 Lewis Carroll, 22 Psi

Quick quiz #44

Answers

icrowave ic m The cosm 1

background, the afterglow

of the big bang. It stands for

ic Background ExplorerCosm

e editing CRISPR genom 2

Dock leaves against 3

nettle stings

bers, equal Perfect num 4

of their divisors to the sum

(eg, 6 = 3 + 2 + 1)

Cracking 5





    

    

   

   

   

 

ACROSS

1 Greater (5)

4 Administration by syringe (9)

9 Lego range launched

in 1982 (7)

10 Dry skin (7)

11 3 (5)

13 Waxy skin secretion (5)

15 Laugh out loud (3)

16 Gene that codes

for regucalcin (3)

17 Minor proposition

in mathematics (5)

19 Poisonous element

in snake venom (5)

21 ___ Hubble, astronomer

and cosmologist (5)

23 Primary colour (5)

24 IT manager (3)

25 Female, for example (3)

26 Spreadsheet software (5)

28 Device using negative

feedback to correct the

action of a mechanism (5)

29 International Bureau of ___

and Measures (7)

31 Concept in mathematical

analysis (4,3)

33 Governing device;

supervisory body (9)

34 UK maker of computer

peripherals (5)

Answers and the next cryptic crossword next week.

DOWN

1 Mathematics picture book

by Jon Scieszka (4,5)

2 ___ cuckoo, Clamator

jacobinus (7)

3 Operating command (3)

4 Anvil (5)

5/14 Sophia ___, first

practising female doctor

in Scotland (3-5)

6 Compact disc read-only

memory (2-3)

7 Anabolic hormone (7)

8 Of the nose (5)

12 Enemy of humanity in TV

show Battlestar Galactica (5)

14 See 5 Down

18 “Any sufficiently advanced

technology is

indistinguishable from ___”

• Clarke’s first law (5)
  19 Ƃ (5)
  20 Part of mammal brain (9)
  22 Migratory songbird,
  Bombycilla garrulus (7)
  24 Magnus , chess
  grandmaster (7)
  25 Effluent evacuator (5)
  26 group, –CH 2 CH 3 (5)
  27 Of the moon (5)
  30 Single electron transfer (3)
  32 Combat among male
  grouse (3) Our crosswords are
  now solvable online
  Available at
  newscientist.com/crosswords