Article: Undergraduate tuition for the 2012/13 school year was $61,240; this includes the basic tuition of $43,380, fees (health $200, etc.), room and board of $13,329 (less if commuting), books and supplies $1,842, personal expenses $1,890, transportation cost of $400. Northwestern awards financial aid solely on the basis of need through loans, work-study, grants, and scholarships. The University processed in excess of $472 million in financial aid for the 20092010 academic year. This included $265 million in institutional funds, with the remainder coming from federal and state governments and private organizations and individuals. Northwestern scholarship programs for undergraduate students support needy students from a variety of income and backgrounds. Approximately 44 percent of the June 2010 graduates had received federal and/or private loans for their undergraduate education, graduating with an average debt of $17,200.

Question: What was the average debt for the June 2010 graduates?
Ans: $17,200

Article: Several animal phyla are recognized for their lack of bilateral symmetry, and are thought to have diverged from other animals early in evolution. Among these, the sponges (Porifera) were long thought to have diverged first, representing the oldest animal phylum. They lack the complex organization found in most other phyla. Their cells are differentiated, but in most cases not organized into distinct tissues. Sponges typically feed by drawing in water through pores. However, a series of phylogenomic studies from 2008-2015 have found support for Ctenophora, or comb jellies, as the basal lineage of animals. This result has been controversial, since it would imply that that sponges may not be so primitive, but may instead be secondarily simplified. Other researchers have argued that the placement of Ctenophora as the earliest-diverging animal phylum is a statistical anomaly caused by the high rate of evolution in ctenophore genomes.

Question: During what time were a series of phylogenomic studies conducted that found support for comb jellies as the basal lineage of animals?
Ans: 2008-2015

Article: Africans were brought to Charles Town on the Middle Passage, first as "servants", then as slaves. Ethnic groups transported here included especially Wolof, Yoruba, Fulani, Igbo, Malinke, and other people of the Windward Coast. An estimated 40% of the total 400,000 Africans transported and sold as slaves into North America are estimated to have landed at Sullivan's Island, just off the port of Charles Town; it is described as a "hellish Ellis Island of sorts .... Today nothing commemorates that ugly fact but a simple bench, established by the author Toni Morrison using private funds."

Question: What author paid for the simple bench at Sullivan's Island?
Ans: Toni Morrison

Article: In many ways, the Paleocene continued processes that had begun during the late Cretaceous Period. During the Paleocene, the continents continued to drift toward their present positions. Supercontinent Laurasia had not yet separated into three continents. Europe and Greenland were still connected. North America and Asia were still intermittently joined by a land bridge, while Greenland and North America were beginning to separate. The Laramide orogeny of the late Cretaceous continued to uplift the Rocky Mountains in the American west, which ended in the succeeding epoch. South and North America remained separated by equatorial seas (they joined during the Neogene); the components of the former southern supercontinent Gondwana continued to split apart, with Africa, South America, Antarctica and Australia pulling away from each other. Africa was heading north toward Europe, slowly closing the Tethys Ocean, and India began its migration to Asia that would lead to a tectonic collision and the formation of the Himalayas.

Question: In the Paleocene period Greenland was joined to which continent?
Ans:
North America