UPSC Prelims 1995 · General Studies
Question 44: Science and Technology
The Nobel Prize for deciphering the language of bees was awarded to
AnswerThe answer is (b).
Karl von Frisch shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, with Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen, for his studies of honeybee behaviour, in particular the dance language by which a forager bee tells the hive the direction and distance of food. H. G. Khorana won for work on the genetic code, Dorothy Hodgkin for crystallography, and Julian Huxley was a biologist and writer. Remember: von Frisch, bees.
Why each option is right or wrong
- (a) H. G. Khorana won the Nobel for work on the genetic code, not bees.
- (b) Right: Karl von Frisch decoded the bee dance.
- (c) Julian Huxley was an evolutionary biologist and writer, not the Nobel winner for bee language.
- (d) Dorothy Hodgkin won the Chemistry Nobel for determining molecular structures by X-ray crystallography.
Explanation: written by UPSC Grade, not by UPSC.
Source: UPSC, Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination 1995, General Studies. UPSC's own paper isn't online; the words are from a published compilation. The paper on upsc.gov.in.