New Scientist has invited readers to test their scientific knowledge with a new quiz, and the questions come from three Nobel laureates. The puzzle was produced to mark the magazine's 70th anniversary and draws on the discoveries that earned each of its authors a Nobel Prize.
Barry Marshall, who shared the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, contributed questions on his work linking stomach ulcers to bacteria. Marshall is based at the University of Western Australia. His research overturned the long-held belief that ulcers were caused mainly by stress and diet, showing instead that infection played a central role and that it could be treated with antibiotics.
Jennifer Doudna, who received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, wrote questions about CRISPR, the gene-editing technique she helped develop. Doudna founded the Innovative Genomics Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, where work on the technology continues. Saul Perlmutter, awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics, added questions on his discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. That finding came from his studies of distant supernovae, carried out at Berkeley.
Each section of the quiz follows one laureate's prize-winning discovery, so readers move from medicine to genetics to cosmology. The article announcing the quiz does not publish the questions or answers, which are presented in the quiz itself.