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Questions:

1. The common pain reliever para-acetylaminophenol is known by which two generic names, one used in the United States and the other used internationally?
2. The onset of analgesia (pain relief) occurs approximately how many minutes after the oral administration of the aforementioned drug: 1, 5, 10, 15, or 20?
3. What is the world’s most traded spice (by monetary value)?
4. Which river was the subject of the most expensive photograph ever sold?
5. How many species of penguin live north of the equator in the wild?
6. What Christmas activity was banned by the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages?
7. The name of which of Santa Claus’s reindeer comes from a Germanic word for lightning?
8. Which nineteenth-century poem is largely responsible for the modern conception of Santa Claus, including his appearance and his reindeer?
9. Which of the following is not one of Santa Claus’s reindeer, as established in the aforementioned poem: Blitzen, Comet, Cupid, Dasher, Dancer, Donder, Prancer, Rudolph, or Vixen?

Answers:

1. Acetaminophen and paracetamol. (The former is the United States Adopted Name, while the latter is the International Nonproprietary Name.)
2. Ten minutes.
3. Black pepper. (Vietnam is the world’s largest producer and exporter of pepper.)
4. Rhine. (A print of the photograph, Rhein II by Andreas Gursky, was sold at auction for $4.3 million.)
5. One. (The Galapagos Penguin, which, as the name suggests, is endemic to the Galapagos Islands.)
6. Gift giving. (It was banned because of its suspected pagan origins.)
7. Blitzen. (From German; the alternative spelling ‘Blixem’ comes from Dutch. The name of the reindeer Donner—or Dunder, again from Dutch—means ‘thunder’.)
8. A Visit from St. Nicholas. (Also known as The Night Before Christmas.)
9. Rudolph. (Rudolph was invented in 1939. Before the name Rudolph was chosen, Rollo and Reginald were also considered.)