Tag: International competition in math science and other disciplines crossword clue

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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

15A Asia’s shrinking ___ Sea : ARAL

The Aral Sea is a great example of how humankind can have a devastating effect on the environment. In the early sixties the Aral Sea covered 26,000 square miles of Central Asia. Soviet irrigation projects drained the lake to such an extent that today the total area is less than 7,000 square miles, with 90% of the lake now completely dry. Sad …

17A Where Boise is : IDAHO

Boise, Idaho is the capital and the largest metropolitan area in the state by far. There are a number of stories pertaining to the etymology of the name “Boise”. One is that French trappers called the tree-lined river that ran through the area “la rivière boisée”, meaning “the wooded river”. Boise is known today as “The City of Trees”.

21A Source of some South American wool : LLAMA

The wool from a llama is much softer than that from a sheep, and it is also free from lanolin.

22A Alaska politico Palin : SARAH

Famously, Sarah Palin was the Governor of Alaska from 2006 until 2009, and had been the Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska from 1996 until 2002. However, Palin is not a native Alaskan. She was born Sarah Heath in 1964 in Sandpoint, Idaho. Her father was a science teacher and took a position in Skagway, Alaska when Palin was just a few months old.

24A ___-Ball : SKEE

Skee-Ball is the arcade game in which the player rolls balls up a ramp trying to “bounce” it into rings for varying numbers of points. The game was first introduced in Philadelphia, in 1909.

25A Alternative to a Word doc : PDF

Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format introduced by Adobe Systems in 1993. PDF documents can be shared between users and read using many different applications and platforms, making them more universally accessible than documents saved by one particular program.

Microsoft Word was introduced in 1983 as Multi-Tool Word for Xenix (Xenix is a discontinued version of the Unix operating system). I used to be a power user of Word, but now use Google Docs for all of my word processing needs.

27A “It’s child’s play” : SIMON SAYS

“Simon Says” is a kids’ game. The idea is for the players of the game to obey the “controller” who gives instructions. But the players should only obey when the controller uses the words, “Simon says …”. The game has very old roots, with a Latin version that uses the words “Cicero dicit fac hoc” (Cicero says do this).

33A One of three statistical averages : MEAN

In a set of numbers, the mean is the average value of those numbers. The median is the numeric value at which half the numbers have a lower value, and half the numbers a higher value. The mode is the value that appears most often in the whole set of numbers.

34A M.L.B. stadium demolished in 2009 : SHEA

Shea Stadium in Flushing Meadows, New York was named after William A. Shea, the man credited with bringing National League baseball back to the city in the form of the New York Mets. Shea Stadium was dismantled in 2008-2009, and the site now provides additional parking for the new stadium nearby called Citi Field.

42A “It’s a no-brainer” : HEADLESS HORSEMAN

The Headless Horseman is a character in Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”.

46A 2016 Ariana Grande love song : INTO YOU

Ariana Grande is a singer and actress from Boca Raton, Florida. Grande plays the role of Cat Valentine on the sitcom “Victorious” that aired for four seasons on Nickelodeon. Grande’s singing career took off with the release of the 2011 album “Victorious: Music from the Hit TV Show”.

48A Heavy, spiked club : MACE

A mace is a relatively simple weapon in essence. It is a heavy weight on the end of a handle that is used to deliver powerful blows on an opponent’s body.

52A “It’s a breeze” : TRADE WIND

The trade winds are those found in the tropics that blow predominantly from the east (from the northeast above the equator, and from the southeast below). Although the trade winds were crucial during the age of sail, allowing the European empires to grow and prosper, the use of the term “trade” had nothing to do with commerce. Rather, the name “trade” was a Middle English word that meant “path, track”, a reference to the predictable courses used by the sailing vessels. It was from these favorable “trade” winds that we began to associate commerce with the term “trade”.

61A Intermittently offered fast-food pork sandwich : MCRIB

The McDonald’s McRib sandwich is based on a pork patty. There isn’t any pork rib in the patty though. It is primarily made up of pork shoulder meat.

65A Oscars host, e.g. : EMCEE

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) is the organization that gives the annual Academy Awards, also known as the “Oscars”. The root of the name “Oscar” is hotly debated, but what is agreed is that the award was officially named “Oscar” in 1939. The first Academy Awards were presented at a private dinner in 1929 with an audience of just 270 people. The Awards ceremony is a slightly bigger event these days …

70A Piano exercise : ETUDE

An étude is a short instrumental composition that is usually quite hard to play and is intended to help the performer master a particular technique. “Étude” is the French word for “study”. Études are commonly performed on the piano.

Down

5D Greek letter that looks like an “O” superimposed with an “I” : PHI

Phi is the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet.

7D Roman robes : TOGAS

In ancient Rome, the toga was a highly symbolic garment, typically a semi-circular woolen cloth draped over the body. Different types of togas indicated a citizen’s status or role: the pure white “toga virilis” was worn by adult male citizens, the “toga praetexta” with a purple border was for magistrates and freeborn boys, and the “toga pulla” (dark-colored) was for mourning.

9D Prohibited in Islam : HARAM

“Halal” is a term describing an action or object that is permissible under Islamic Law. In particular “halal” is used to describe food that can be consumed. Anything that is not allowed is described as “haram”.

11D Texas setting for 2004’s “Friday Night Lights” : ODESSA

The city of Odessa, Texas has as its symbol the jack rabbit. This is because from the thirties through the seventies the city hosted a rodeo for roping rabbits. The Humane Society applied pressure and the city did away with the tradition in 1977.

“Friday Night Lights” is a 2004 film based on a 1990 book “Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream” by H. G. Bissinger. The film stars Billy Bob Thornton as a high school football coach. I haven’t seen the movie, but thoroughly enjoyed “Friday Night Lights”, the subsequent TV series.

28D Loch ___ monster : NESS

The Surgeon’s Photograph is an image that was taken in 1934, supposedly of the Loch Ness Monster. It is perhaps the most famous picture of Nessie to this day, the one with a “head” and “neck” sticking up out of the water. The picture’s renown doesn’t seem to have abated, even though in the mid-nineties the photograph was shown to be a hoax. The picture is called the Surgeon’s Photograph because it was taken by a Dr. Wilson.

30D Flightless bird from South America : RHEA

The rhea is a flightless bird that is native to South America. It takes its name from the Greek Titan Rhea. That’s an apt name for a flightless bird as “rhea” comes from the Greek word “éra” meaning “ground”.

36D Chinese general on a menu : TSO

General Tso’s chicken is an American creation, and a dish often found on the menu of a Chinese restaurant. The name General Tso may be a reference to General Zuo Zongtang of the Qing Dynasty, but there is no clear link.

37D “___ will be done” : THY

The Lord’s Prayer is a central prayer in Christian religions, and is found in two places in the New Testament. In the version in the Gospel of Matthew, the last line of the prayer is “deliver us from evil”. In the Gospel of Luke, the last line is “lead us not into temptation”. The last words of the prayer most often used today are:

For thine is the kingdom,
The power, and the glory,
For ever and ever,
Amen

43D Pet pests : LICE

Lice (singular “louse”) are small wingless insects, of which there are thousands of species. There are three species of lice affecting humans, i.e. head lice, body lice and pubic lice. Most lice feed on dead skin found on the body of the host animal, although some feed on blood. Ick …

53D Title role for Sylvester Stallone : RAMBO

A rambo is a very violent and militant person. The term is a relatively recent one, coming from the character John Rambo played by Sylvester Stallone in the “Rambo” series of movies. The first Rambo film made was “First Blood” in 1982. The film in turn is based on the 1972 novel of the same name by David Morrell.

56D Unit of information : DATUM

Our word “data” (singular “datum”) comes from the Latin “datum” meaning “given”. The idea is that data are “things given”.

63D Swedish furniture supplier : IKEA

The IKEA furniture stores use the colors blue and yellow for brand recognition. Blue and yellow are the national colors of Sweden, where IKEA was founded.

64D Complaint, informally : BEEF

A beef is a complaint or a grievance. It’s not quite clear how “beef” came to have this meaning, but one suggestion is that it derives from the habit of soldiers at the end of the 1800s complaining about the quality or availability of beef in their rations.

66D Arrivals in the 2016 thriller “Arrival,” in brief : ETS

2016’s “Arrival” is a very entertaining sci-fi film that is based on a short story by Ted Chiang called “Story of Your Life”. Amy Adams plays a linguist who is called upon to communicate with aliens that have arrived on Earth.

68D ___ Faire (historical event) : REN

A Renaissance faire (Ren faire) is an outdoor public event in which many participants recreate historical settings by dressing in costume. Usually held in North America, many such fairs are set during the English Renaissance, and more particularly during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The definition of “Renaissance” is often stretched quite a bit, with fairs also set during the reign of Henry VIII, and maybe even during medieval times.