Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

An element named after a glow

Radium takes its name from the Latin word for ray, a nod to the glow its radiation produced. Marie and Pierre Curie discovered it in 1898 while processing pitchblende ore, and it earned them a share of the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics. Its symbol, Ra, comes from the first two letters of the name. Radium was later used in luminous watch dials before its health dangers became clear.

Faulkner's difficult masterpiece

William Faulkner published "The Sound and the Fury" in 1929. The novel tells the story of the Compson family in fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, across four sections with shifting narrators. Its first section is told by Benjy, a man with a cognitive disability, and the book's stream-of-consciousness style made it famously demanding. Faulkner later called it his favourite of his own works.

Islands ranked by size

Among Madagascar, New Guinea and Java, New Guinea is the largest. It is the world's second-largest island after Greenland and is divided between Papua New Guinea and the Indonesian region of Papua. Madagascar ranks fourth globally, while Java is the most populous island on Earth despite being far smaller than the other two.

The Sahel's southern edge

The Sahel is a semi-arid belt stretching across Africa just south of the Sahara. Burkina Faso sits within it, along with countries such as Mali, Niger and Chad. The region is known for its dry climate, seasonal rainfall and the challenges that come with desertification and food security.

Death Valley's below-sea-level basin

Death Valley holds the lowest point in the United States, at Badwater Basin in California. It sits roughly 86 metres below sea level. The valley is also one of the hottest places on Earth, with recorded temperatures among the highest ever measured.