New Scientist - USA (2021-02-27)

52 | New Scientist | 27 February 2021

Quick crossword #77 Set by Richard Smyth

Scribble

zone

Answers and

the next cryptic

crossword next week

The back pages Puzzles

Our crosswords are now solvable online

newscientist.com/crosswords

Quick quiz #90

1 Which species of whale

has the largest mouth?

2 In October 2020, NASA announced

that water particles had been found

in which crater of the moon?

3 Name the type of starch

that dominates in sticky rice.

4 What invention is US deep sea

diver Otis Barton best known for?

5 How many elements were in

Dmitri Mendeleev’s original periodic

table in 1869?

Answers on page 55

Puzzle

set by Zoe Mensch

#102 Passport to

success

My nine-digit passport number has

some remarkable properties. Not

only does it use all the digits from

1 to 9, but if I label the number

ABCDEFGHI, then:

A is divisible by 1

AB is divisible by 2

ABC is divisible by 3

ABCD is divisible by 4

ABCDE is divisible by 5

ABCDEF is divisible by 6

ABCDEFG is divisible by 7

ABCDEFGH is divisible by 8

ABCDEFGHI is divisible by 9

You could program a computer to

find this passport number, but there

are shortcuts to figuring it out with

a pen and paper. For example, a

number is only divisible by 3 if its

digits add up to a multiple of three

(eg: 372 is divisible by 3 because

3+7+2=12). And a number is only

divisible by 4 if its last two digits

form a number that is also a

multiple of four (hence 9324 is

divisible by 4 because 24 also is.)

What is my passport number?

Solution next week

ACROSS

1 Maritime heavy industry (12)

10 Eighth planet from the sun (7)

11 Where chromatids or nerve fibres intersect (7)

12 The ordinate, in a 2D graph (1-4)

13 DNA microarray (4,4)

15 Organs in the eye sockets that secrete

an aqueous film (4,6)

16 Blueprint; strategy (4)

18 Foot digits (4)

20 In my opinion (2,3,3,2)

22 Origination and development

of an organism (8)

24 Projection on a bird’s wing (5)

26 Paul ___ , German physician, originator

of the “magic bullet” concept (7)

27 Set of equipment (7)

28 A “two-mover directmate”, for example (5,7)

DOWN

2 Oxygen deprivation (7)

3 + (4,4)

4 Pigmented layer of the eye (4)

5 Sealed portal (6,4)

6 Functional group of two acyl groups

bound to N (5)

7 Fuel also called E10 (7)

8 Saying attributed to Galileo (3,3,2,5)

9 Woodworking social insects (9,4)

14 Units equal to 12.7mm (4-6)

17 Human-made underground chamber (8)

19 Relating to the digestive tract (7)

21 Finger joint (7)

23 Of an aircraft, to fly without engine power (5)

25 Proxima Centauri or Sirius A, perhaps (4)