Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

A rare earth with a hard-to-place name

Gadolinium takes its name from Johan Gadolin, a Finnish chemist who studied a mineral from which several rare earth elements were later isolated. Its symbol, Gd, follows the two-letter convention used across the periodic table. Gadolinium sits among the lanthanides, a group of metals that often turn up in magnets, lasers and medical imaging rather than in everyday objects.

Five boroughs, one very specific list

New York City is made up of five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. Scarborough, meanwhile, is a district of Toronto, which is likely why it feels familiar in a New York context. Each borough also functions as a county, which is why the city's administrative map looks more complicated than most.

Darwin, Mendel and two very different revolutions

Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, setting out evolution by natural selection. Gregor Mendel, often called the father of genetics, was working on inheritance around the same period, though his findings went largely unnoticed for decades. Together their ideas underpin modern biology, even though the two men never met.

Capitals that moved and capitals that stayed

Naypyidaw became the capital of Myanmar in the mid-2000s, replacing Yangon, which remains the country's largest city. North Macedonia's capital, Skopje, is a much older urban centre with roots stretching back to antiquity. Both names are relatively recent on the world stage, which is part of why they trip up quiz players.