Movie enemies actually collaborated

You saw the 1984 movie “Amadeus,” so you know that Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were archrivals. Right? Not exactly. They weren’t best buddies, but they occasionally collaborated on works. The score for one of those works, “Per la Ricuperata Salute di Ofelia” or “For the Recovered Health of Ophelia,” turned up a few years ago in the archives of the Czech Museum of Music in Prague. It was written in 1785 in honor of a singer who’d lost her voice.

Ophelia is a tragic character in which of Shakespeare’s tragic plays?

A) “Hamlet”

B) “Macbeth”

C) “Othello”

D) “Titus Andronicus”

Answer: Ophelia is a tragic character in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”

Pepto-Bismol mystery

Why is Pepto-Bismol pink? The company website says that no one is sure why the doctor who developed it chose to make it pink. Its active ingredient, bismuth subsalicylate, is naturally white. The pink comes from added colorants. So anyone who tells you Pepto-Bismol is naturally pink is perpetuating a myth.

Pinking shears were designed to cut what?

A) Fabric

B) Plant stems and branches C) Sheet metal

D) Vulcanized rubber

Answer: Pinking shears cut fabric with a saw-toothed edge that limits fraying.

T. Rex evolved in size

Tyrannosaurus rex was what paleobiologists call the “apex predator” of the latest Cretaceous period, a gigantic creature that stalked the Earth between 80 and 66 million years ago, eating what it pleased. But the T. rex didn’t start out as the 42-foot-tall, 7ton giant we know today. Its earliest relatives were humansized, and archaeological digs in Uzbekistan unearthed a horse-sized T. rex cousin.

Bukhara, Uzbekistan, was historically known as a center for trade in what handmade objects?

A) Candles

B) Pottery

C) Rugs D) Swords

Answer: Bukhara, Uzbekistan, has historically been a center for the rug trade.

Zone for water on planets

The circumstellar habitable zone is the region around a star where a planet orbiting the star could potentially have water in liquid form on its surface — and potentially support extraterrestrial life. Too close to the heat of the star, water will evaporate. Too far away from the star, the planet would be extremely cold, and the water would freeze. Conditions have to be just right, which is why it’s sometimes called the “Goldilocks zone.”

The annual Golden Globes movie awards are given by what organization?

A) Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

B) Broadcast Film Critics Association

C) Hollywood Foreign Press Association

D) Outer Critics Circle

Answer: The Golden Globes are voted on by members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.