Health & Wellness
As we speak’s Atlantic Trivia Questions and Solutions, Week 15
Jan
Up to date with new questions at 4:40 p.m. ET on January 22, 2026.
In Princeton, New Jersey, a brief stroll from the college you’ve gotten heard of, there lies just a little campus house to the Institute for Superior Research. It was based in 1930 to not confer levels nor—God forbid!—to earn money, nor even to conduct analysis towards any finish specifically. The institute proclaims that its goal is “the pursuit of data for its personal sake.”
Founder Abraham Flexner reckoned that good minds, as soon as freed to pursue “ineffective satisfactions,” would come upon discoveries of “undreamed-of utility,” as he wrote in {a magazine} a number of years into the institute’s work. It appears to have labored for Albert Einstein, who had an workplace there. J. Robert Oppenheimer, too.
Get pleasure from this week’s ineffective satisfactions. I look ahead to your concept of every thing the week after.
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Thursday, January 22, 2026
- What institution is called the “nation’s attic” for its huge assortment of American artifacts?
— From Lily Meyer’s article on the long-running argument over that attic - The Arabic phrase for “every thing” is the identify of what web site that considerations itself with elections, sports activities scores, geopolitical happenings, and mainly every other predictable occasion a consumer can suppose up?
— From Saahil Desai’s article on the hazard of this kind of web site - What political-science time period describes a rustic with a weak authorities, an exploited working class, and an elite-controlled financial system that normally is determined by one (presumably fruity) commodity?
— From Marc Novicoff’s essay on on the lookout for a label for Donald Trump’s governance
And by the way in which, do you know that the vaunted Athenians, inventors of democracy, mostly chosen their political officeholders by probability? Bronze tokens representing the grownup males of Athens could be slotted right into a carved-stone machine referred to as the kleroterion, then cube could be repeatedly dropped into the contraption to rule out tokens till solely the quantity required to carry workplace remained.
The correct poli-sci time period for that is sortition, which additionally applies to how the USA selects individuals for jury obligation at present. However think about the remainder of U.S. democracy working like that: You’re tossing out your spam if you discover a letter from the feds—congrats, the massive authorities Plinko board has determined you’re serving one 12 months in Congress. Good luck!
Till tomorrow.
Solutions:
- The Smithsonian. The world’s largest museum complicated is, naturally, extra than simply dusty storage, and the “attic” moniker belies the facility the Smithsonian Establishment has to form the narrative of the USA, Lily writes. The story issues greater than all of the stuff—so it’s no surprise individuals battle over it, she says. Learn extra.
- Kalshi. Like Polymarket, Kalshi is a type of websites that purports to be a “prediction market” and never a playing platform—repeat, not a playing platform. Besides, Saahil writes, any discussion board for betting is definitionally manipulable; the media shops that breathlessly report odds as decided by Kalshi had higher beware. Learn extra.
- Banana republic. The time period, usually utilized to Latin American international locations, doesn’t actually match the USA, Marc writes (though synthetic intelligence actually looks like the nation’s banana proper now), nor does authoritarianism, fascism, or kleptocracy. Somewhat, Marc argues, the USA may proper now be a kakistocracy. Learn extra.
How did you do? Come again tomorrow for extra questions, and should you suppose up an awesome query after studying an Atlantic story—or just need to share a reality—ship it my approach at [email protected].
Wednesday, January 21, 2026
- The surprisingly formed juhyo—“monsters” made the place the wind sculpts snow round evergreen bushes—seem every winter on Mount Zao, in a rural prefecture of what nation?
— From Alan Taylor’s assortment of pictures of the phenomenon - The Trump administration this month posted photographs of politicians and celebrities sporting a selected kind of mustache—a marketing campaign meant to encourage consumption of what dietary merchandise?
— From Yasmin Tayag’s article on one of many meals world’s longest wars - In web slang, what four-letter first identify may be utilized to any muscular, romantically profitable “alpha male”? (Drop a letter, and also you get a phrase for a person who behaves boorishly towards ladies.)
— From Thomas Chatterton Williams’s essay on the disaster of “looksmaxxing”
And by the way in which, do you know that—talking of snow monsters—the U.S. State Division in 1959 issued steerage on yeti expeditions? It knowledgeable Individuals who wished to hunt for the abominable snowman that they must adjust to sure guidelines set by Nepal: They wanted to pay for a allow, they needed to share any photographic proof they discovered, and so they have been allowed to seize the yeti alive however might kill it solely “in an emergency arising out of self defence.”
Alas, this didn’t imply that State officers believed within the monster. Somewhat, they have been attempting to indicate their help for Nepalese sovereignty—and thus preserve the nation out of the clutches of a boogeyman that scared Individuals much more than the yeti: communism.
Solutions:
- Japan. The monsters make for eerie snowboarding within the mountains of Yamagata prefecture, the positioning of one in all Japan’s oldest resorts. If a jaunt there may be out of the query, the pictures Alan compiled are a shocking substitute. See the photographs.
- Milk. The dairy ’staches are a throwback to the “Obtained Milk?” marketing campaign launched within the Nineties. Now the Trump staff needs everybody consuming entire milk particularly, Yasmin says—presumably to recapture America’s misplaced promise? The main points are fuzzy. What’s clear, Yasmin writes, is that “the idealized period of completely protected, completely healthful dairy by no means actually existed.” Learn extra.
- Chad. (And your drop-a-letter reply is cad.) The Chad is among the extra legible parts of the nook of the web dedicated to “looksmaxxing”—the “monomaniacal dedication” to enhancing one’s look, as Thomas places it. Reporting on this troubling, uncompassionate subculture, Thomas concludes that it could be the proper distillation of the ethical disaster younger males face. Learn extra.
Tuesday, January 20, 2026
- Whereas Swedish establishments choose the winner of each different Nobel Prize, the award for peace is conferred by a committee from what nation?
— From Anne Applebaum’s evaluation of Donald Trump’s threatening Greenland letter - What 1986 sports activities film follows the boys of tiny Milan Excessive College to their state-championship victory over Muncie Central?
— From Keith O’Brien’s article on the top of the underdog - The Barbz are—or have been—the fan base of what “Anaconda” rapper, who just lately alienated lots of them when she appeared at a Turning Level USA occasion alongside Charlie Kirk’s widow?
— From Spencer Kornhaber’s essay on Trump’s ever-stalled effort to win the tradition battle
And by the way in which, do you know that all through the historical past of the Nobel Prizes, there have been years so turbulent that the Peace Prize committee decided to not confer an award, at the same time as different classes went on?
This occurred in a number of of the interwar years as Nazi Germany rearmed, Italy invaded Ethiopia, and peace usually disintegrated. It was additionally the case for the years of World Warfare I, except for 1917, when the committee acknowledged the Crimson Cross for its humanitarian assist. (All the Nobel Prizes have been suspended through the early years of World Warfare II.)
The circumstances have been a bit totally different in 1948, when the committee dominated that “there was no appropriate dwelling candidate.” The clear message was that the award—which by rule can’t be given posthumously—ought to have gone to Mahatma Gandhi, assassinated earlier that 12 months.
Solutions:
- Norway. Neither of these international locations, you’ll be aware, is Denmark, the Scandinavian state that Greenland is part of. Nonetheless, Anne writes, in a letter to Norway’s prime minister, Trump threatened invasion of the territory as a consequence of his not receiving a Nobel Peace Prize—by no means thoughts that Norway’s authorities doesn’t decide the winner, both. Learn extra.
- Hoosiers. The actual-life miracle that immortalized Milan, Indiana, is probably the underdog story in sports activities. Indiana College’s win on Monday in faculty soccer’s nationwide championship is, likewise, an awesome story, O’Brien writes—however regardless of what number of Hoosier comparisons commentators make, the victory isn’t the story of an underdog. That storyline, at the very least in faculty soccer, is kaput. Learn extra.
- Nicki Minaj. Minaj’s look at AmericaFest was actually a “plot twist,” Spencer writes, but it surely’s additionally in step with conservatives’ try to so disorient America that they’ll graft “a brand new zeitgeist” onto the tradition. Alas—ask a Barb—tradition remains to be too stunning and messy to manage. Learn extra.
