General Science Quiz: Branches of Science and Their Fields of Study

Mycology is the study of fungi, the group that includes moulds, yeasts, mushrooms and the rusts and smuts that attack crops, and a specialist in it is called a mycologist.

Ornithology is the study of birds, their classification, habits, migration and nesting; Salim Ali, known as the birdman of India, was the country's best known ornithologist and wrote the Book of Indian Birds.

Seismology is the study of earthquakes and of the passage of seismic waves through the earth, and it is from seismic wave records that the layered structure of the interior of the earth has been worked out; the instrument used is the seismograph.

Palaeontology is the study of fossils, the preserved remains or traces of organisms of past geological ages, and it supplies the evidence on which the history of life and the theory of evolution rest.

Sericulture is the rearing of silkworms for the production of raw silk, and it includes the growing of mulberry, on whose leaves the mulberry silkworm feeds; India produces mulberry silk as well as the wild varieties tasar, eri and muga, the last being special to Assam.

Entomology is the branch of zoology that deals with insects, the largest class of animals, and it covers their structure, classification, life cycles and their role as pests and pollinators.

Pedology is the study of soils, including their formation from parent rock, their profile and horizons, their classification and their fertility, and it is the science behind soil surveys and land capability maps.

Speleology is the exploration and scientific study of caves, their formation, the limestone features such as stalactites and stalagmites that develop in them, and the animal life adapted to permanent darkness.

Cryogenics deals with the production of very low temperatures and with the behaviour of materials at those temperatures, where liquefied gases such as liquid nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen are used; it is applied in rocket engines with cryogenic upper stages, in superconducting magnets and in the preservation of biological material…

Phycology, also called algology, is the study of algae, the simple photosynthetic organisms that range from the single-celled Chlamydomonas to the large brown seaweeds, and it covers their classification and their uses as food, fertiliser and a source of agar.

Herpetology is the study of reptiles such as snakes, lizards, crocodiles and turtles, together with amphibians such as frogs, toads and salamanders, and in India it includes the work on snake venom and antivenom at institutions that maintain snake parks.

Nephology is the study of clouds, their formation, classification into types such as cirrus, cumulus and stratus, and their part in rainfall, and it is a branch of meteorology, the science of the atmosphere and the weather.