Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

A canvas that seems to predict tragedy

Vincent van Gogh painted Wheatfield with Crows in July 1890, during the final weeks of his life in Auvers-sur-Oise, north of Paris. The painting's wide format, darkening sky and crows rising from the wheat have long encouraged the idea that it was a farewell to life, though that reading says more about how we interpret the artist's biography than about the picture itself. Van Gogh was prolific in those last months, completing dozens of works.

The world's smallest mammal

The bumblebee bat, also known as Kitti's hog-nosed bat, lives in limestone caves in western Thailand and nearby Myanmar. It weighs roughly two grams, which makes it a strong contender for the smallest mammal on Earth by body mass. It was only formally described by science in 1974, which is remarkably recent for a mammal.

Oceania and how we count countries

Oceania is usually described as having 14 to 16 sovereign states, depending on whether you count places such as the Cook Islands and Niue, which are self-governing in free association with New Zealand. The region also contains many territories administered by other countries, which is why simple answers to this question vary so much.

Lemongrass and the balance of Thai cooking

Lemongrass is the aromatic backbone of tom yum, the hot and sour soup that is one of Thailand's best-known dishes. Thai cooking is often described in terms of balancing sweet, sour, salty and spicy elements, and tom yum leans heavily on the sour side, with lime juice and sometimes tamarind working alongside the lemongrass.

A tiny state in the Apennines

San Marino covers roughly 61 square kilometres, making it one of the smallest countries in the world, ahead of only a handful of states such as Monaco and Vatican City. It sits entirely inside Italy, near the Adriatic coast, and claims to be the world's oldest surviving republic. Malta, by contrast, is an archipelago of several islands with a total area many times larger.