Question 1

True or false: Stevens used mealworms (Tenebrio molitor) as her primary research organism.

Accepted Answer

True. She studied mealworm chromosomes, observing distinct X and Y chromosomes in males, a breakthrough in genetics.

Question 2

True or false: Nettie Stevens discovered that sex is determined by X and Y chromosomes.

Accepted Answer

True. In 1905, Stevens showed that female mealworms had XX and males had XY, linking chromosomes to sex determination.

Question 3

True or false: Nettie Stevens was awarded the Nobel Prize for her work on sex determination.

Accepted Answer

False. Nettie Stevens did not win a Nobel Prize. The 1933 Nobel in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Thomas Hunt Morgan for chromosome research, which built upon her discovery of sex chromosomes.

Question 4

True or false: Nettie Stevens earned her PhD from Bryn Mawr College in 1903.

Accepted Answer

True. She received her Ph.D. in 1903 after years of teaching high school. Her graduate work at Bryn Mawr led to her groundbreaking discovery of sex chromosomes.

Question 5

True or false: Nettie Stevens's discovery was immediately celebrated and widely credited during Nettie Stevens's lifetime.

Accepted Answer

False. Much of the credit went to Edmund Wilson, who independently reached similar conclusions; Stevens’ work was often overlooked.

Question 6

True or false: Nettie Stevens published over 40 research papers before the age of 30.

Accepted Answer

False. Stevens started her research career in her 30s and published her first papers around 1905-1906, long after turning 30. She published approximately 38–40 papers total over her lifetime, but none before the age of 30.

Question 7

True or false: Nettie Stevens was the first woman to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Accepted Answer

False. Florence Rena Sabin was the first woman elected to the NAS in 1925; Stevens died in 1912 before that.

Question 8

True or false: Stevens originally studied marine biology before switching to genetics.

Accepted Answer

True. Her early research focused on marine organisms, later pivoting to heredity under Edmund Wilson's mentorship.

Nettie Stevens Trivia Questions