Thursday news quiz: Meta losing face, sugar in space and a bear in the wrong place

This bear cub has some questions for you. Photograph: Mike Nelson/EPA

And so after nearly 70bn matches – or so it seems – the Fifa World Cup has reached the sharp end. But regular readers will know that they face the sharp end of the challenge of the Thursday news quiz every Thursday. Fifteen questions await on topical news, general knowledge and pop culture. Plus collective nouns for some reason. There are no prizes, but let us know how you got on in the comments. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 256

1. 

   We lost lovely Sam Neill, whom nobody seems to have a bad word about. He spent many years in New Zealand, but where was he born?

   1. Caerphilly, Wales

   2. Nairn, Scotland

   3. Omagh, Northern Ireland

   4. Preston, England

2. 

   Meta has said ⁠it is discontinuing an AI feature that allowed users to generate images using public Instagram ⁠accounts after drawing widespread ⁠criticism over ​privacy concerns. What was it called?

   1. Muse

   2. Vola

   3. Token

   4. Klow

3. 

   Berlin’s mayor (not pictured) has abandoned his campaign to stand for reelection after failing to recover from a row over his decision to do what while large parts of the German capital were hit by a power blackout in January?

   1. Host a candlelit wine-tasting evening

   2. Record a guest spot on a local cooking podcast

   3. Play tennis

   4. Attempt to summon Cthulhu from the black depths of the Spree river

4. 

   Tokyo the dog has been rescued after falling ill from eating cannabis discarded on a mountain trail. Where?

   1. Yr Wyddfa

   2. Ben Nevis

   3. Scafell Pike

   4. Slieve Donard

5. 

   Send Derren Brown today's collective noun. Use your psychic powers to let him know what is the collective noun for magpies …

   1. A tiding of magpies

   2. A calling of magpies

   3. An announcement of magpies

   4. An irritation of magpies

6. 

   Officials in Japan are hunting a bear (not pictured) that did what?

   1. Broke into a fishmongers

   2. Went for a kip in the back of a local bus

   3. Raided an elderly couple's fridge

   4. Teamed up with 30-50 feral hogs to embark on a crime spree

7. 

   Rapper Pitbull and his fans set a world record at his London show by doing what?

   1. Most people shouting a musical catchphrase ('¡Dale!') simultaneously

   2. Largest gathering of people wearing aviator sunglasses

   3. Largest synchronised dance to a single song

   4. Becoming the ‘largest gathering of people wearing bald caps’

8. 

   This week's guest canine is Gitana, who was supporting Spain against France in the Fifa World Cup with her owners earlier this week. Spain's opening goal came from a penalty. Remind her who scored it?

   1. Gustavo Velázquez

   2. Willian Pacho

   3. Mikel Oyarzabal

   4. Darwin Núñez

9. 

   What did meme-king Erling Haaland carry off the plane with him when Norway arrived back in Oslo after their World Cup adventure?

   1. A golden broadsword he claimed he 'won in a duel' in Texas

   2. A taxidermied raccoon holding a bottle of spirits

   3. A pair of custom-embroidered neon pink cowboy boots

   4. A teeny-tiny doll of Roy Keane

10. 

    The Thursday quiz wasn't going to ask anything about the bison that yeeted a grandfather 8ft up in the air (yes, that is it pictured) until we were sure everybody was OK. But Carl McDaniel has said the incident wasn't 'as catastrophic as it could’ve been', so here goes. Where did it happen?

    1. Grand Teton national park

    2. Wind Cave national park

    3. Theodore Roosevelt national park

    4. Yellowstone national park

11. 

    A museum in Rotterdam (pictured) has paid tribute to the idiosyncratic character of one of the most influential figures in the Dutch arts by spreading 800lb of what across the floor of one of its galleries?

    1. Vegemite

    2. Loose green peas

    3. Peanut butter

    4. Kate Bush records

12. 

    This fossil Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton sold for $50.1m. What is its name?

    1. Gus

    2. Gary

    3. Glenn

    4. Guillermo

13. 

    A natural sugar found in raspberries and used in fake tan lotions has been detected in an enormous cloud of dust and gas that lurks near the heart of the Milky Way. What is the sugar called?

    1. Ribulose

    2. Erythrulose

    3. Fructose

    4. Edshoulderskneesundtose

14. 

    On this day with Brian May! And his badger! 16 July is the anniversary of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon, dubbed the Trinity test, by the US. The Thursday quiz imagines Queen's legendary guitarist wants you to tell him – and his badger – in which US state …

    1. New Mexico

    2. Arizona

    3. Utah

    4. Nevada

15. 

    And finally … in an egregious attempt to get into the Guardian Thursday news quiz, a pilot in north-west England flew around spelling out which phrase for the benefit of airplane trackers?

    1. I'm tired

    2. I'm lost

    3. I'm bored

    4. I'm a little teapot

    5. I'm a very naughty miniature dachshund

Solutions

1:C - Born Nigel John Dermot Neill in 1947 in Omagh, Northern Ireland, he moved to New Zealand in 1954 and took the name Sam when he was 12 because there were already several Nigels at his school, 2:A - Who could have foreseen this kind of feature would cause a backlash, eh? Certainly not the big brains in Silicon Valley, 3:C - He insisted that, while he had made errors in terms of his communication, his management of the emergency had been good, but still, nevertheless, yeeted himself out of the door marked 'do one', 4:B - Lochaber mountain rescue team stretchered an unconscious Tokyo down from the peak to a local vet and she made a full recovery, 5:A - It is indeed, according to Grammar Monster, a tiding of magpies. Odds Bodkins!, 6:C - Mitsuo Matsubara was confronted by a large Asiatic black bear when he went to investigate a noise in his kitchen, and found his fridge was open, with food strewn across the floor. The bear is thought to be responsible for 14 break-ins during a wild fortnight, 7:D - In order to do it, Pitbull also had to wear a bald cap, even though he is bald. It kept everybody out of trouble, we guess, 8:C - He is the only Spanish player in the list, 9:B - He later asked fans on Instagram to name the critter, 10:D - Photographer Mike MacLeod described the bison as 'agitated, pissed off and charging anything and everything'. McDaniel says he is able to stand after surgery, but faces a lengthy recovery period. The bison was not available for comment, 11:C - The hexagonal floor installation, called Pindakaasvloer (Peanut Butter Floor), is a recreation of a work by Wim T Schippers conceived of in 1962 and first exhibited in 1969, 12:A - Gus takes its name from Gary 'Gus' Licking, the owner of the land where the skeleton was discovered, which is a shame as the Thursday quiz hoped it was an acronym for 'Giant 'ucking skeleton', 13:B - It is the very first sugar to be detected in interstellar space and gives scientists a clue as to how sugars may have arrived on Earth back in the days before it came in cubes, 14:A - The test was conducted in the Jornada del Muerto desert about 35 miles (56 km) south-east of Socorro, New Mexico, 15:C - The pilot spent 20 minutes tracing out the seven-letter phrase in tight, angular loops over the water between Talacre and Greenfield on the England-Wales border

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   We hope you had fun. Let us know how you got on in the comments!

If you really do think there has been an egregious error in one of the questions or answers – and can show your working and are absolutely 100% positive you aren’t attempting to factcheck a joke – you can complain about it in the comments below. Why not watch Lost Boys by Phoebe Bridgers instead?

Lost Boys by Phoebe Bridgers