"Millions of years will pass, everything will be destroyed, but the portrait of the President of Russia on sapphire will shine in the rays of the everlasting sun," said Russian artist, scientist and Renaissance man Victor Petrik before unveiling his 3-D portrait of Vladimir Putin etched into the surface of a 611-gram synthetic sapphire. Putin is the latest in Petrik's portrait series, which includes such notables as George H.W. Bush, Gandhi, Pope John Paul II, Queen Rania of Jordan and Angelina Jolie.

The Crown-of-Thorns Starfish (COTS) is a predator that attaches to a coral reef and sucks out the coral's inner soft tissue. Every once in a while the COTS population booms, leading to outbreaks that cause large-scale reef damage, such as the one that struck the Fagatele Bay National Marine Sanctuary in American Samoa in the 1970s. A few months ago, a massive attack threatened reefs in the Maldives. Disaster was mitigated by volunteer divers who removed 7,396 COTS from the reefs by hand.

Amelia Earhart designed her own clothes for flying, including a one-piece flight suit that was featured in Vogue magazine. That led to a complete line of Amelia Earhart sportswear for women, including shirts made from parachute silk. She said she designed for tall women, like herself, who had trouble finding fashionable clothes to fit them. The earnings from her fashion career went to finance her work in aviation.

Tonsilloliths, or tonsil stones, are the result of food particles that become trapped in the folds of your tonsils, where they calcify into little, white hardened masses. They smell awful and they can cause persistent bad breath. Although they're a common affliction, many people aren't aware of tonsil stones until they dislodge one and cough it up.

As an 18-year-old chemistry student in 1850s England, William Perkin was trying to make synthetic quinine for treating malaria. Instead, his experiments with coal tar yielded a brilliant purple liquid that could be used to dye textiles and paper. Perkin's "mauveine" was the first synthetic dye ever produced. It was such a breakthrough that Queen Victoria herself made a public appearance wearing a gown dyed mauveine purple and her image on postage stamps was colored with — what else? — mauveine.

When Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti joined the crew of the International Space Station last year she arrived with an espresso maker customized for use in space. But you can't have the true espresso experience if you're sipping coffee through a straw stuck in the astronauts' standard-issue plastic drink bags. So, engineers in Oregon designed special coffee cups for the International Space Station that rely on surface tension to replace the effects of gravity. Now the astronauts can sip their coffee and conduct experiments in fluid dynamics at the same time.

TRIVIA

1. What 2009 Oscar-winning film is, according to its full title, "based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire"?

A) "Avatar"

B) "Crazy Heart"

C) "The Hurt Locker"

D) "Precious"

2. Starfish are members of the phylum Echinodermata, whose name comes from the Greek words for what?

A) Beautiful creature

B) Five legs

C) Sea monster

D) Spiny skin

3. In 1935, Amelia Earhart was a visiting professor in aeronautics at what midwestern university?

A) University of Illinois

B) Iowa State

C) Kansas State

D) Purdue

4. Which stinky element contributes most to the unpleasant odor of bad breath?

A) Argon

B) Iron

C) Potassium

D) Sulfur

5. Deep Purple's classic rock hit "Smoke on the Water" describes events surrounding a rock concert in what country?

A) Belgium

B) France

C) Germany

D) Switzerland

6. One of the world's first coffee trading centers was the Red Sea port of Al-Mokha, or Mocha, in what country?

A) Egypt

B) Jordan

C) Saudi Arabia

D) Yemen

ANSWERS

1) "Precious," which won Oscars for best supporting actress and best adapted screenplay, was based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire.

2) The phylum Echinodermata, which includes starfish and sea urchins, takes its name from the Greek for "spiny skin."

3) Amelia Earhart briefly taught aeronautics at Purdue, which maintains an archive of Earhart documents and artifacts.

4) Bacteria in your mouth produce sulfur compounds that cause bad breath.

5) "Smoke on the Water" describes Montreux "on the Lake Geneva shoreline" in Switzerland.

6) Al-Mokha, or Mocha, is a port on the Red Sea in Yemen.

WEEK OF JANUARY 11

The Mosuo people of southwestern China, are one of the few matrilineal communities on earth, meaning that family relationships are traced though female ancestors and that family property is passed down to daughters. Anthropologists aren't certain why or when the Mosuo matrilineal system began. Some say it's been that way for thousands of years; others claim it's relatively recent-the result of married women moving in with their parents because their husbands traveled for extended periods of time.

On rare occasions, it's possible to spy a moonbow in the night sky. A moonbow is like a rainbow with moisture in the atmosphere illuminated by the glow of the moon rather than the light of the sun. For a moonbow to occur after a nighttime rain, the moon must be low in the sky and extremely bright, and even then the arc you see in the sky might appear white instead of tinted with all the colors of the rainbow.

A waywiser is a surveyor's instrument used to measure linear distance. (You could call it a surveyor's wheel or a clickwheel, but waywiser sounds much more colorful.) A wheel of a fixed size is connected to a pole with a gauge attached. As the surveyor rolls the waywiser along the surface of the land, the gauge counts the wheel's revolutions to determine the distance it's traveled. The name comes from German for "to show the way."

"The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" — or "123" if you prefer the 2009 remake — refers to a New York City subway train that departs Pelham Bay Park station at 1:23 p.m. There hasn't been a "Pelham 123" train since the release of the 1974 original movie, in which the train is hijacked by thugs called Mr. Blue, Mr. Green, Mr. Gray and Mr. Brown. (Possibly not their real names.) Quentin Tarantino borrowed the color-coded criminals idea for "Reservoir Dogs" in the 1990s.

Twice in the history of the NCAA Division I Men's basketball tournament, the championship game was contested by two schools with the same team nickname. In 1951, the Kentucky Wildcats defeated the Kansas State Wildcats. In 1997, the Arizona Wildcats defeated the Kentucky Wildcats.

Chief Chemist at the United States Department of Agriculture, Harvey Washington Wiley, studied the effects of artificial food additives mainly by feeding them to grad student volunteers. That Wiley's research was nicknamed the "poison squad studies" gives you some idea of what it revealed. His advocacy for food safety led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906. The USDA Bureau of Chemistry became the precursor to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and Harvey Wiley the first FDA commissioner.

TRIVIA

1. In what does the substance known as mother of pearl form naturally inside?

A) Human bones

B) Rocks

C) Seashells

D) Trees

2. Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon in what location?

A) Sea of Clouds

B) Sea of Fertility

C) Sea of Serenity

D) Sea of Tranquility

3. In 1976, a live version of "Show Me the Way" became a Billboard Top 10 hit for what artist?

A) Jeff Beck

B) Rick Derringer

C) Peter Frampton

D) Johnny Winter

4. London had the world's first underground train system. Which world capital had the second?

A) Beijing, China

B) Budapest, Hungary

C) Buenos Aires, Argentina

D) Paris, France

5. Which classic TV legend starred as Wildcat Jackson in the 1960 Broadway musical "Wildcat"?

A) Lucille Ball

B) Jack Benny

C) Johnny Carson

D) Jackie Gleason

6. Monosodium glutamate is added to food primarily as a

A) Coloring

B) Flavor enhancer

C) Preservative

D) Sugar substitute

ANSWERS

1) Mother of pearl, also known as nacre, forms inside seashells.

2) The Apollo 11 Lunar Module landed on the area of the moon's surface known as Mare Tranquillitatis, the Sea of Tranquility.

3) Peter Frampton's "Show Me the Way" hit No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1976.

4) The Budapest Metro opened in 1896, making it the world's second-oldest underground train system.

5) Lucille Ball starred in the Broadway musical "Wildcat," which ran for 171 performances in 1960 and 1961.

6) MSG is added to food mainly as a flavor enhancer.

WEEK OF JANUARY 18

The New Zealand 10-dollar note bears a portrait of Kate Sheppard, a women's suffrage pioneer. She led the campaign to make New Zealand the first independent nation in the modern world to grant women the right to vote, which it did in 1893. A mere 27 years after that, women in the United States were granted the right to vote.

In the 1920s, Andre Breton, Joan Miro and their Surrealist painter friends played a parlor game called Cadavre exquis, or "exquisite corpse." It began with each artist drawing feet on a piece of paper then folding it over to hide the drawing. They exchanged papers and drew the legs and lower torso. Another exchange for the upper torso and arms. A final exchange for the head, then the paper was unfolded to reveal a completed figure.

After a workplace accident left him unable to return to the job site, engineer Washington Roebling supervised the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge from the window of his home in Brooklyn Heights. His wife, Emily, became his emissary, traveling back and forth to the construction site every day through the 13 years of construction. When the bridge opened in 1883, Emily Roebling had the honor of being the first person to drive across it.

Blue whales are the largest and the loudest creatures on earth, but their voices are being drowned out by the sound of ships, offshore drilling and other manmade distractions. There was a time when blue whales could communicate with each other across a distance of more than a thousand miles; today it's about one-tenth of that, and some whale species appear to be gradually going deaf because of underwater noise pollution.

"Saturday Night Live" is aired live ... but not always. On Oct. 25, 1986, the scheduled broadcast was delayed when Game 6 of the World Series between the New York Mets and the Boston Red Sox went into extra innings. Producers waited as long as they could before deciding that the show couldn't go on that night. The studio audience waited, too, until 1:30 a.m., when the show was performed and recorded. That historic "Saturday Night Taped" episode aired on Nov. 8, 1986.

You know vitamins A, C, D and E, all those Bs and even vitamin K. So how about vitamins F through J? Most are still with us, but living under assumed names. Vitamin F is now those essential fatty acids nutritionists talk about when they tell us to eat more salmon and sunflower seeds. Vitamin G was reclassified as vitamin B-2 (riboflavin). Vitamin H is now vitamin B-7 (biotin). Vitamin J is choline, an essential nutrient, but not a vitamin. Vitamin I, if it ever existed, is now incognito. If you find it, please let us know.

TRIVIA

1. Which amendment to the U.S. Constitution says, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex"?

A) 18th

B) 19th

C) 20th

D) 21st

2. The corpse flower (Amorphophallus titanum) earned its name because why?

A) It grows in cemeteries

B) It resembles a dead body

C) It smells like decomposing flesh

D) It's used in funeral wreaths

3. The Brooklyn Bridge spans which body of water?

A) East River

B) Harlem River

C) Hudson River

D) Spuyten Duyvil Creek

4. Which character is the narrator of Herman Melville's novel "Moby-Dick"?

A) Ahab

B) Ishmael

C) Queequeg

D) Starbuck

5. The host of the first prerecorded "Saturday Night Live" episode was what star of the 1986 movies "8 Million Ways to Die" and "Nobody's Fool"?

A) Rosanna Arquette

B) Rebecca De Mornay

C) Demi Moore

D) Molly Ringwald

6. Actress/singer Colleen Fitzpatrick released the pop singles "Smile" and "Graduation (Friends Forever)" under what stage name?

A) Beta-Carotene

B) Omega-3

C) Simple Sugar

D) Vitamin C

ANSWERS

1) The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave women the right to vote.

2) The corpse flower's decomposing flesh smell attracts insect pollinators.

3) The Brooklyn Bridge spans the East River in New York City.

4) "Call me Ishmael," says the narrator of Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick," because Ishmael is his name.

5) Rosanna Arquette hosted the first prerecorded episode of "Saturday Night Live."

6) Colleen Fitzpatrick was known to pop music fans of the 1990s as Vitamin C.

WEEK OF JANUARY 25

Mark Twain claimed to have been the first person in the world to produce a literary manuscript on a typewriter. That book was "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," which Twain said he'd had "type-copied" in 1874. He bought his first typewriter in Boston in 1873 for the sum of $125, and taught himself to type by repeating "The boy stood on the burning deck" (from the poem "Casabianca" by Felicia Hemans) until he mastered the skill.

Director Sam Raimi's good luck charm is a yellow 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 sedan that once belonged to his dad. It features in "The Evil Dead" and despite plummeting to its demise in both "Crimewave" and "Army of Darkness," it reappears as Uncle Ben's car in "Spider-Man." Cate Blanchett drives it in "The Gift." It torments Alison Lohman in "Drag Me to Hell." Pieces of it are rumored to be in "The Quick and The Dead," and its engine block and camshaft appear in "Oz, the Great and Powerful."

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born Jan. 27, 1756, wrote his first opera, "Bastien und Bastienne," at age 12. The one-act comic opera about a shepherdess and her love was commissioned by Dr. Anton Mesmer, the Austrian physician who popularized hypnotism (also known as mesmerism). It was performed for the first time at Mesmer's home in the suburbs of Vienna in 1768 and not again until a production in Berlin in 1890, nearly 100 years after Mozart's death.

About 99 percent of people in Japan choose to be cremated after they die. The decision is partly due to Buddhist practice and partly due to the fact that Japan doesn't have a lot of available land for cemeteries. Although it's been traditional for deceased members of the Japanese Imperial family to be interred in mausoleums, Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko made news a few years back when they said they'd prefer simple cremation rites rather than elaborate state funerals.

The world's largest parliament building (and the world's second-largest office building, after the Pentagon) is the Palace of Parliament in Bucharest, Romania. An entire historic district, including churches, synagogues, homes and museums was razed to make way for the 365,000-square-meter building. Then-president/dictator Nicolae Ceausescu wanted it built to withstand an earthquake — or possibly a nuclear attack — but he didn't live long enough to occupy the space. He and his wife were executed in 1989, before his "Palace of the People" was completed.

To date, there are just two chemical elements named for real (not mythological) women. One is curium, named for Marie Curie and her husband Pierre, the Nobel Prize winners who discovered radium and polonium. The other is meitnerium, named for Austrian physicist Lise Meitner. Her work on nuclear fission should have earned her a share in the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Instead, the prize went to her colleague Otto Hahn, a snub that still riles members of the science community.

TRIVIA

1. Mark Twain's hometown, Hannibal, Missouri, is named for a

A) Carthaginian military commander

B) Greek philosopher

C) Native American tribal leader

D) Roman emperor

2. Who played Oz in the 2013 film "Oz, the Great and Powerful"?

A) Johnny Depp

B) Robert Downey Jr.

C) James Franco

D) Tobey Maguire

3. Which star of "Sex and the City" was a high school student when she filmed her part in the 1984 film "Amadeus"?

A) Kim Cattrall

B) Kristin Davis

C) Cynthia Nixon

D) Sarah Jessica Parker

4. Which regal flower is most closely associated with the emperor of Japan?

A) Chrysanthemum

B) Gladiolus

C) Lilac

D) Rose

5. Where is the Pentagon located?

A) Arlington, Virginia

B) Bethesda, Maryland

C) Colorado Springs, Colorado

D) Washington, D.C.

6. In the 1940s, which physicist oversaw the building of the first nuclear reactor in the United States?

A) Albert Einstein

B) Enrico Fermi

C) Richard Feynman

D) Werner Heisenberg

ANSWERS

1) Hannibal was a military leader from the ancient city-state of Carthage in North Africa.

2) James Franco played the role of Oz in "Oz, the Great and Powerful."

3) Cynthia Nixon was in her senior year at Hunter College High School in New York when she played Lorl the maid in "Amadeus."

4) The chrysanthemum is the Japanese imperial flower.

5) The Pentagon is in Arlington, Virginia.

6) Enrico Fermi oversaw the building of Chicago Pile-1, the first nuclear reactor.

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