Updated with new questions at 5:05 p.m. ET on October 1, 2025.In the 1960s, the authors of one of the world’s first popular compendiums of fun and interesting facts entreated readers not to mistake the “flower of Trivia” for the “weed of minutiae.” Trivia stimulates the mind, Edwin Goodgold and Dan Carlinsky wrote in More Trivial Trivia; minutiae stymie it.Happily, The Atlantic’s garden bursts with the former and is almost entirely lacking in the latter, and in this new project of daily quizzes, I get to share a bunch of that trivia with you, curious readers. So set down the Snapple cap and stop to smell the blooms—is that geranium?—with questions from recently published stories.To get these questions in your inbox every day, sign up for The Atlantic Daily.Wednesday, October 1, 2025A surprisingly central plank of Republican Jack Ciattarelli’s campaign for New Jersey governor has been his promise to bring back what convenience to the state’s grocery stores, banned since 2022 for environmental reasons?— From Russell Berman’s “The Blue State That’s Now a Bellwether”What television show that opens its 51st season this weekend once recruited its stars from institutions such as the Second City and the Groundlings—but is starting to pull from TikTok?— From David Sims’s “The One Big Change [ANSWER] Is Making” Dark taxa is the term biologists use for the majority of all life on Earth that has not been formally sorted into what foundational classification?— From Marion Renault’s “The Machines Finding Life That Humans Can’t See”And by the way, did you know that there is also far more dark matter in the universe than visible matter, by a factor of about 5 to 1, scientists reckon? In fact, much like the snacks we keep at our office desk, dark matter passes into our body all day long without our even noticing.Scientists still have not directly observed dark-matter particles and—rather vindictively, it seems to me—have denominated a leading theoretical candidate “WIMPs”: weakly interacting massive particles.Until tomorrow!Answers:Plastic bags. Russell reports that the bag pledge is one of Ciattarelli’s biggest applause lines—an example of how he’s carefully positioned himself at the “very edge” of the culture wars in a state that’s Democratic but trending toward the center. Read more.Saturday Night Live. The cast changeover ahead of the season opener had a few surprise departures, David writes, but the real “nudge toward the future” is the hiring of a whole bunch of extremely online young comics whose work is both of and all over the internet. Read more.Species. Only about 2.3 million species have been cataloged, which feels like way too many to merit only as a descriptor, until you realize that Earth is home to maybe 8 million species (and maybe even many millions more). Renault writes that the rate of identification and the rate of species disappearances are both speeding up in a high-tech, higher-stakes race. Read more.How did you do? Come back tomorrow for more questions, or read below for previous ones. And if you think up a great one after reading an Atlantic story—or simply want to share a stimulating fact—send it my way at trivia@theatlantic.com.Tuesday, September 30, 2025From the edition of The Atlantic Daily written by Tom Nichols:The global fan event Tudum gets its onomatopoeic name from the sound that plays at the start of original productions of what streaming service?— From Shirley Li’s “It’s Not Just [ANSWER]—It’s Your Entire Life”In keeping with the tradition of albatross or ravens as an omen, what Tchaikovsky ballet would the Soviet government play on loop on TV during periods of political instability?— From Anna Nemtsova’s “Moscow Can’t Stop the Music”What music festival of the late 1990s derived its name from the mythical first wife of Adam, who in Jewish folklore preceded Eve and left the Garden of Eden rather than be subservient to her husband?— From Sophie Gilbert’s “The Hard-Won Lessons of [ANSWER]”And, by the way, did you know that the chess term check comes from the Persian word shah, as in “king”? And that checkmate comes from shah mat, or “the king is frozen”? (That latter bit happens to be close enough to Persian’s mata—“to die”—that for a good long while, Westerners who learned the game might have thought it more regicidal than strictly necessary.)For Monopoly lovers, modern Persian’s angoshtane varshakaste shode is “thimble gone bankrupt.”Answers:Netflix. As Shirley writes, the streaming behemoth is doing everything it can to turn fans of individual offerings into fans of the whole shebang, but it has a long way to go. Read more.Swan Lake. Nemtsova’s account of the dissident music scene in Russia mentions the outlawed song “Cooperative Swan Lake,” in which Noize MC raps, “Let the swans dance!”—meaning, let a new leader arrive. Read more.Lilith Fair. The name was fitting, Sophie writes, because the all-female festival was not about “secondary status,” but about strength. The world could use a revival of the festival now, when women often top the charts but consciousness of their power is arguably at an ebb. Read more.Monday, September 29, 2025From the edition of The Atlantic Daily written by Tom Nichols:What international sporting event occurred last weekend in New York, after happening most recently two years ago in Italy … and before that in Wisconsin … and before that in France (after Minnesota, after Scotland, after Illinois, etc.)?— From Sally Jenkins’s “Golf’s Very Loud Weekend”According to many commentators on the right, when progressives penalize wrongdoing, it’s “cancel culture”; when conservatives do it, it’s merely what other double-c phrase suggestive of an action’s inevitable repercussions?— From Idrees Kahloon’s “Illiberal America, MAGA Edition”Dealing as much with loss and grief as with physical monstrosity, what Victorian epistolary novel was referred to by its young author as her “hideous progeny”?— From Jon Michael Varese’s “ChatGPT Resurrected My Dead Father”And, by the way, did you know that Transnistria, the Russia-aligned breakaway region of Moldova, is the only place in the world that circulates plastic currency? A friend visited recently (don’t ask) and returned with some of these “coins,” which are neither exchangeable back into other currencies nor accepted anywhere else on Earth, except—and only sometimes—by a few cross-border-bus operators back in Moldova proper. They do, however, make excellent bingo chips.Answers: The Ryder Cup. Sally writes that the biennial contest between U.S. and European golfers is a noisy affair even at its civilest and was bound to be particularly raucous once you packed in hundreds of thousands of born hecklers from across New York’s boroughs and beyond. Read more.“Consequence culture.” This is, for what it’s worth, also what a lot of progressives call it when they themselves are doing it. Idrees worries that the self-excusing and hypocrisy is kicking off a spiral from which America will struggle to extricate itself. Read more.Frankenstein. The echoes of Mary Shelley’s novel bounce crystal-clear through all the instances Varese relates of grieving people trying to resurrect lost loved ones through AI—a group that includes the writer himself. Read more.