Day: March 8, 2016

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
8. Double helix parts : STRANDS
Francis Crick and James Watson discovered that DNA had a double-helix, chain-like structure, and published their results in Cambridge in 1953. To this day the discovery is mired in controversy, as some crucial results collected by fellow researcher Rosalind Franklin were used without her permission or even knowledge.

15. Cuckoo, from the Yiddish : MESHUGA
“Meshuga” is a slang term meaning “crazy, stupid” that come into the language via Yiddish.

16. Hard work : TRAVAIL
A “travail” is a really difficult task or burden. “Travail” is the French for “work”.

18. Tree whose berries flavor gin : JUNIPER
The spirit known as gin gets its unique flavor mainly from juniper berries. The name “gin” comes into English from the translation of “juniper” from either French (genièvre), Dutch (jenever) or Italian (ginepro).

19. Memorable hurricane of 2011 : IRENE
Hurricane Irene caused extensive flooding in 2011 as it travelled through the Caribbean, up the East Coast of the United States and into the Atlantic seaboard of Canada. The hurricane was unusual in that it came so far up north. Fifty-five deaths were attributed to Irene.

20. Disneyland locale, briefly : SOCAL
Southern California (SoCal)

Walt Disney came up with the idea of building Disneyland after visiting other theme parks with his daughters in the thirties and forties. He started building the park at Anaheim, California in 1954, and the facility opened just one year and one day later. The total cost of construction was $17 million. Opening day did not go smoothly, largely because over 28,000 people visited the park compared to the 11,000 people expected at the invitation-only event. The opening day went so badly that for years Disney executives referred to it as “Black Sunday”.

21. Rebellious Turner : NAT
Nat Turner was a slave in Virginia who led a slave rebellion in 1831 that led to the deaths of over a hundred people. Half of the casualties were white,and half were black. The 55 white deaths took place on the day of the rebellion as a growing mob of slaves traveled from house-to-house freeing fellow slaves but also killing any white people they came across; men, women and children. The rebellion was suppressed within two days by a white militia. Slaves involved in the rebellion were tried for insurrection and related crimes, and a total of 56 blacks were executed on suspicion of involvement in the uprising. In the aftermath, life for slaves became even more difficult as any freedoms that they had earned were largely curtailed.

28. Princess in “Frozen” : ELSA
“Frozen” is a 2013 animated feature from Walt Disney Studios that is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Snow Queen”.

31. Cabbage for miso soup? : YEN
The Korean Won, the Chinese Yuan, and the Japanese Yen (all of which are Asian currencies) take their names from the Chinese written character that represents “round shape”.

Lettuce, cabbage, kale, dinero, dough and moola/moolah are all slang terms for money.

Miso is the name of the seasoning that makes the soup. Basic miso seasoning is made by fermenting rice, barley and soybeans with salt and a fungus to produce a paste. The paste can be added to stock to make miso soup, or perhaps to flavor tofu.

32. Where Samsung is headquartered : SEOUL
Samsung is huge multinational company based in Seoul, South Korea. We tend to think of Samsung as a supplier of consumer electronics perhaps, but the company is into so much more. Samsung Heavy Industries is the world’s second-biggest shipbuilder, and Samsung Techwin is a major manufacturer of aeronautic and weapons systems. The name “Samsung” means “three stars” in Korean.

37. “Anatomy of a Murder” director : OTTO PREMINGER
Otto Preminger was noted for his films that pushed the envelope in terms of subject matter, at least in the fifties and sixties. Great examples would be 1955’s “The Man with the Golden Arm” that dealt with drug addiction, 1959’s “Anatomy of a Murder” that dealt with rape, and 1962’s “Advise and Consent” that dealt with homosexuality. If you’ve seen these films, you’ll have noticed that the references are somewhat indirect and disguised, in order to get past the censors.

“Anatomy of a Murder” is a novel by Robert Traver, the pen name of Michigan Supreme Court Justice John D. Voelker. The novel’s storyline, about a murder trial and rape, is based on a real case that the author participated in as a defense attorney. The novel was famously adapted into a ground-breaking 1959 film starring James Stewart, George C. Scott and Lee Remick.

40. The Taj Mahal, for one : SHRINE
The most famous mausoleum in the world has to be the Taj Mahal in Agra, India. The Taj Mahal was built after the death of the third wife of Shah Jahan, Mumtaz Mahal (hence the name of the mausoleum). The poor woman died in childbirth delivering the couple’s 14th child.

41. Mrs. Eisenhower : MAMIE
Mamie Eisenhower has to have been one of the most charming of all the First Ladies of the United States. Ms. Eisenhower suffered from an inner ear complaint called Ménière’s disease which caused her to lose her balance quite often. Because she was unsteady on her feet there were unfounded rumors floating around Washington that Ms. Eisenhower had a drinking problem. People can be very unkind …

42. One of the five W’s : WHO?
The Five Ws (or “Five Ws and one H”) is a journalistic concept used for gathering information. For a story to be complete, six questions need to be answered:

– Who is it about?
– What happened?
– Where did it take place?
– When did it take place?
– Why did it happen?
– How did it happen?

43. Poetic measure : IAMB
An iamb is a metrical foot containing an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Robert Frost’s “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” consists of lines made up of four sequential iambs e.g. “Whose woods / these are / I think / I know”. With a sequence of four iambs, the poem’s structure is described as iambic tetrameter.

48. Quick-cooking cut of meat : MINUTE STEAK
A minute steak is also referred to as cube steak. It is a cut of top round or top sirloin that is tenderized by pounding with a mallet.

53. An eagle beats it : PAR
The following terms are routinely used in golf for scores relative to par:

– Bogey: one over par
– Par
– Birdie: one under par
– Eagle: two under par
– Albatross (also “double eagle”): three under par
– Condor: four under par

No one has ever recorded a condor during a professional tournament.

54. Fracking material : SHALE
“Fracking” is a familiar term for “hydraulic fracturing”. Fracking involves the injection of chemicals and sand in water at high pressure into a wellbore. This creates cracks in layers of rock deep in the earth allowing perhaps oil or natural gas to flow more freely to the surface. I know someone who works for the US Geological Surface, and he’s measuring seismic activity in parts of the country where it has never been seen before. It seems that that fracking does have an impact on our environment after all …

55. Major artery : AORTA
The aorta originates in the heart and extends down into the abdomen. It is the largest artery in the body.

63. Opening on the side of a vest : ARMHOLE
Here’s another word that often catches me out. What we call a vest in the US is a waistcoat back in Ireland. And the Irish use the word “vest” for an undershirt.

Down
2. ___ network (term in anatomy and artificial intelligence) : NEURAL
It used to be that a neural network was just the name given to a network nerve cells in an organism. In the modern world, the term “neural net” (short for “neural network) also applies to virtual or electronic devices designed to mimic the function of the human brain, and in particular learning from past experiences.

4. Now’s partner : THEN
Now and then …

5. Unsophisticated sorts : RUBES
A “rube” is person lacking sophistication, often described as “a country bumpkin”. The term derives from the masculine name “Reuben”, which was considered back in the early 1800s to be a typical name used in rural areas.

7. ___ Romana : PAX
A “pax” (Latin for “peace”) is a period of history marked by an absence of war and conflict, although that stability is usually a result of one nation predominating. We often use the more specific term “pax Romana” to describe such a situation, referring back to such a time in Ancient Rome.

8. Virgin Island that’s 60% national park : ST JOHN
The US Virgin Islands are located in the Caribbean, and are part of the Virgin Islands archipelago. The three largest islands of the US territory are Saint Croix, Saint John and Saint Thomas. The island chain was named by Christopher Columbus in 1493 in honor of Saint Ursula and her virgin followers. The United States bought the islands from Denmark during WWI in a move designed to thwart plans by Germany to use them as a submarine base.

11. Walled Spanish city : AVILA
Avila is famous for the walled defenses around the old city, which date back to 1090. They were constructed out of brown granite, and are still in excellent repair. There are nine gateways and eighty-towers in all. Even the cathedral built between the 12th and 14th centuries is part of the city’s defenses, so it looks like an imposing fortress.

12. 40 winks : NAP
Back in the early 1800s, folks took “nine winks” when getting a few minutes of sleep during the day. Dr. William Kitchiner extended this concept in his 1821 self-help book “The Art of Invigorating and Prolonging Life”. He suggested “A Forty Winks Nap”, which we seem to have been taking ever since. Mind you, I’m up to about eighty winks most days …

13. Game cube : DIE
The numbers on dice are arranged so that the opposite faces add up to seven. Given this arrangement, the numbers 1, 2 and 3 all meet at a common vertex. There are two ways of arranging the 1, 2 and 3 around the common vertex, a so called right-handed die (clockwise 1-2-3) or a left-handed die (counterclockwise 1-2-3). Traditionally, dice used in Western cultures are right-handed, whereas Chinese dice are left-handed. Quite interesting …

14. Camera inits. : SLR
SLR stands for “single lens reflex”. Usually cameras with changeable lenses are the SLR type. The main feature of an SLR is that a mirror reflects the image seen through the lens out through the viewfinder, so that the photographer sees exactly what the lens sees. The mirror moves out of the way as the picture is taken, and the image that comes through the lens falls onto unexposed film, or nowadays onto a digital sensor.

20. No-win chess outcome : STALEMATE
“Stalemate” is a term used in chess when one player (who is not in check) cannot make a legal move. A game of chess with a stalemate is declared a draw. We use the term metaphorically for a no-win situation in general.

23. Marry a cutie on the q.t., maybe : ELOPE
“On the qt” is a slang term for “on the quiet”. It has been around since the 1870s.

25. Tiny memory unit : BYTE
In the world of computers, a “bit” is the basic unit of information. It has a value of 0 or 1. A “byte” is a small collection of bits (usually 8), the number of bits needed to uniquely identify a character of text. The prefix mega- stands for 10 to the power of 6, so a megabyte (meg) is 1,000,000 bytes. And the prefix giga- means 10 to the power of 9, so a gigabyte (gig) is 1,000,000,000 bytes. Well, those are the SI definitions of megabyte and kilobyte. The purists still use 2 to the power of 20 for a megabyte (i.e. 1,048,576), and 2 to the power of 30 for a gigabyte.

29. Sparkling wine region : ASTI
Asti is in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy. The region is perhaps most famous for its Asti Spumante sparkling white wine.

33. Word found in “time on end,” appropriately : EON
The word “eon” is hidden in the middle of the phrase “time on end”.

34. “The Lion King” lion : SIMBA
In “The Lion King”, the protagonist is Simba, the lion cub born to Mufasa and Sarabi. The main antagonist is Scar, Simba’s uncle and Mufasa’s brother.

36. Disney bigwig Bob : IGER
Robert Iger is currently the president and CEO of the Walt Disney Company, and is the successor to Michael Eisner. Iger worked for ABC when it was taken over by Disney in 1996, and in 1999 he was named president of Walt Disney International. Iger is doing okay for himself. He earned more than $29 million in 2009.

38. Video game film : TRON
Released in 1982, Disney’s “Tron” was one of the first mainstream films to make extensive use of computer graphics. The main role in the movie is played by Jeff Bridges. The original spawned a 2010 sequel called “Tron: Legacy”, as well as a 2012 TV show called “Tron: Uprising”.

39. Broadway auntie : MAME
“Auntie Mame” is a 1955 novel by Patrick Dennis that was adapted for the Broadway stage in 1958 with Rosalind Russell playing the title role. There is also a 1958 movie adaption that also stars Russell.

40. Certain bachelor, in personal ads : SWM
Single white male (SWM)

43. Archipelago parts : ISLETS
“Archipelago” is a name often used for a group or chain of islands. “Archipelago” is our spelling of the Italian “arcipelago”, a word that has Greek roots. “Arcipelago” was the proper name for the Aegean Sea in Greek, a word that was eventually used for the Aegean Islands.

46. Christmas, in Italy : NATALE
“Natale” is the Italian word for Christmas.

47. Gadget for Parmesan : GRATER
Parma is a city in northern Italy, famous for its ham (prosciutto) and cheese (parmesan).

49. Seize unlawfully : USURP
“To usurp” is to seize and hold by force, say the power or authority of a ruler. The term “usurp” comes to us from Latin via French, from “usus” (a use) and “rapere” (to seize).

50. ___ of Fife (Macduff’s title) : THANE
Thanes were Scottish aristocrats. The most famous thanes have to be the Shakespearean characters Macbeth (the Thane of Glamis, later Thane of Cawdor) and MacDuff (the Thane of Fife). Other thanes in “Macbeth” are Ross, Lennox and Angus, as well as Menteith and Caithness.

51. Like a beaver : EAGER
An “eager beaver” is a glutton for work. The phrase is army slang that dates back to WWII. I think the idea is that beavers are considered to be particularly industrious, as evidenced by the building of beaver dams.

52. Destiny : KARMA
“Karma” is religious concept with its basis in Indian faiths. Karma embraces the notion of cause and effect. Good deeds have good consequences at some later point in one’s life, future life, or afterlife and vice versa.

56. Adolph in New York Times history : OCHS
Adolph Ochs was a former owner of “The New York Times”. Ochs had purchased a controlling interest in “The Chattanooga Times” when he was only 19 years of age, and took control of “The New York Times” in 1896 when he was 38 years old. It was Ochs who moved the paper’s headquarters to a new building on Longacre Square in Manhattan, which the City later renamed to the famous “Times Square” after the newspaper. The Ochs-Sulzberger family has owned the paper ever since.

58. ___ Tomé and Príncipe : SAO
The Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe is an island nation off the west coast of Africa comprising mainly two islands: São Tomé and Príncipe. São Tomé and Príncipe is located in the Gulf of Guinea, off the coast of Gabon. It was colonized by Portugal after POrtuguese explorers discovered the islands in the 15th century. After gaining independence in 1975, São Tomé and Príncipe is now the smallest Portuguese-speaking country in the world.

60. Like the Beatles, in 1960s lingo : FAB
The Beatles were described on the sleeve notes of their 1963 album “With the Beatles” as the “fabulous foursome”. The press picked up on the phrase and morphed it into “the Fab Four”.

61. Bookmarked thing : URL
Internet addresses (like NYTCrossword.com and LAXCrossword.com) are more correctly called Uniform Resource Locators (URLs).

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Unable to escape : IN A TRAP
8. Double helix parts : STRANDS
15. Cuckoo, from the Yiddish : MESHUGA
16. Hard work : TRAVAIL
17. Something to check if the lights go out : FUSE BOX
18. Tree whose berries flavor gin : JUNIPER
19. Memorable hurricane of 2011 : IRENE
20. Disneyland locale, briefly : SOCAL
21. Rebellious Turner : NAT
22. Lay out plates, silverware, napkins, etc. : SET THE TABLE
28. Princess in “Frozen” : ELSA
30. ___ shark : LOAN
31. Cabbage for miso soup? : YEN
32. Where Samsung is headquartered : SEOUL
34. Cut out (for) : SUITED
37. “Anatomy of a Murder” director : OTTO PREMINGER
40. The Taj Mahal, for one : SHRINE
41. Mrs. Eisenhower : MAMIE
42. One of the five W’s : WHO?
43. Poetic measure : IAMB
44. Step on a ladder : RUNG
48. Quick-cooking cut of meat : MINUTE STEAK
53. An eagle beats it : PAR
54. Fracking material : SHALE
55. Major artery : AORTA
57. Placate : ASSUAGE
60. Wrap “worn” by 17-, 22-, 37- and 48-Across? : FUR COAT
62. Cafeteria worker’s wear : HAIRNET
63. Opening on the side of a vest : ARMHOLE
64. Toads and kangaroos : HOPPERS
65. Sci-fi weapon : BLASTER

Down
1. “Nothing’s broken!” : I’M FINE!
2. ___ network (term in anatomy and artificial intelligence) : NEURAL
3. Building, inventory, cash on hand, etc. : ASSETS
4. Now’s partner : THEN
5. Unsophisticated sorts : RUBES
6. Previously : AGO
7. ___ Romana : PAX
8. Virgin Island that’s 60% national park : ST JOHN
9. Armistice : TRUCE
10. Stampeded toward : RAN AT
11. Walled Spanish city : AVILA
12. 40 winks : NAP
13. Game cube : DIE
14. Camera inits. : SLR
20. No-win chess outcome : STALEMATE
23. Marry a cutie on the q.t., maybe : ELOPE
24. Get the show on the road : TOUR
25. Tiny memory unit : BYTE
26. Wolfish look : LEER
27. Crusty bread slice : END
29. Sparkling wine region : ASTI
33. Word found in “time on end,” appropriately : EON
34. “The Lion King” lion : SIMBA
35. Prefix with brow : UNI-
36. Disney bigwig Bob : IGER
37. “Fancy seeing you here!” : OH HI!
38. Video game film : TRON
39. Broadway auntie : MAME
40. Certain bachelor, in personal ads : SWM
43. Archipelago parts : ISLETS
45. Pull from the ground : UPROOT
46. Christmas, in Italy : NATALE
47. Gadget for Parmesan : GRATER
49. Seize unlawfully : USURP
50. ___ of Fife (Macduff’s title) : THANE
51. Like a beaver : EAGER
52. Destiny : KARMA
56. Adolph in New York Times history : OCHS
57. “That feels amazing!” : AHH!
58. ___ Tomé and Príncipe : SAO
59. Drink hot chocolate, maybe : SIP
60. Like the Beatles, in 1960s lingo : FAB
61. Bookmarked thing : URL

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