16 January 2021 | New Scientist | 53Quick crossword #74 Set by Richard Smyth
Scribble
zoneAnswers and
the next cryptic
crossword next week The back pages Puzzles
Our crosswords are now solvable online
newscientist.com/crosswordsQuick quiz #84
1 What name is given to a kind
of modified berry with a thick rind
and segments of juicy pulp, such
as oranges and kumquats?2 In biology, Cope’s rule is the
tendency of organisms to evolve
in what way over time?3 What is Pele’s hair?4 Pando, a clonal colony of around
47,000 genetically identical trees
in Utah, is thought to be the heaviest
known organism. What kind of tree
is it made up of?5 Comet Tempel-Tuttle is associated
with which meteor shower?Answers on page 55Puzzle
set by Rob Eastaway#96 Inside the box
Can you join the 36 dots below
using 10 straight lines, with your
pen never leaving the paper and no
lines going outside the grid? At least
one line must pass through each
dot and no devious rule-bending
is required. You will find lots of
ways to do it with 11 lines, but
10 is much more of a challenge.PS This puzzle forces you inside the
box, but its solution is related to the
classic four-line, nine-dot problem
that was the origin of the cliché
“thinking outside the box”.Answer next weekACROSS
9 Higher, superior (5)
10 90° north (5,4)
11 20th-century Dutch astronomer (3,4)
12 ___ number, used to label or identify (7)
13 Leg joints (5)
15 Unspecified ordinal numeral (3)
16 Period, age (3)
17 Woodworking tool (3)
19 Of memory, able to precisely
recall an image (7)
20 1000 hertz (3)
23 Animal doctor (3)
24 Public transport vehicle (3)
25 Illuminated (3,2)
27 “There is no such thing as a ___” –
Mark Twain (3,4)
29 Acetylsalicylic acid (7)
32 Arctic bird of prey (9)
33 Siblings from the same pregnancy (5)DOWN
1 ___ Khalifa, Dubai skyscraper (4)
2 Marine life forms in the phylum Porifera (6)
3 Georg von ___ , German wireless pioneer (4)
4 Small wading bird (4)
5 Inflammation in the lung (10)
6 Metabolic panel (4)
7 Perambulation first undertaken
by Neil Armstrong (8)
8 Involuntary response to stimulus (6)
13 Carnivorous parrot of New Zealand (3)
14 Perspiration (5)
15 Soft-bodied marine mollusc (10)
16 Microsoft spreadsheet software (5)
18 Cable carrying a flow of current (4,4)
21 Fastening device formerly known
as a clamp locker (3)
22 Ancient non-flowering plant (6)
26 Asphalt lake (3,3)
28 Air or water resistance (4)
29 Skin condition (4)
30 Hierarchy expressing a location in a file system (4)
31 John ___ , mathematician and economics
Nobel laureate (4)