A man was going to bleach his socks because they had gotten muddy the day before. As he was pouring the bleach into the washing machine, he spilt some on the floor. He got some cleaning fluid and mopped it up with a rag. Minutes later he was dead. What killed him?
A bag contains 64 balls of eight different colours. There are eight of each colour (including red). What is the least number you would have to pick, without looking, to be sure of selecting 3 red balls?
Your last good ping-pong ball fell into a narrow metal pipe embedded one foot deep in concrete.
How can you get it out undamaged, if all the tools you have are your tennis paddle, shoe laces, and plastic water bottle, which does not fit into the pipe?
A thief is convicted in Mexico. He gets the death penalty. The judge allows him to say the last sentence to determine how the penalty will be carried out. If the thief lies, he will be hanged, if he speaks the truth he will be beheaded. The thief tells the last sentence and to everybody's surprise some minutes later he is set free because the judge cannot determine his penalty. What did the thief say?
Jim and Sarah are in a long-distance relationship. Jim buys an engagement ring for Sarah and wants to mail it to her. Unfortunately, the only way to ensure the ring will be received is to place a lock on the package. Jim has locks and Sarah has locks, but neither has keys for each other’s locks. How can they make sure the ring isn’t stolen?
Accidentally, two trains are running in the opposite direction and enter a tunnel that is 200 miles long. A supersonic bird that has fled the lab and taken shelter in the tunnel starts flying from one train towards the other at a speed of 1000 mph. As soon as it reaches the second train, he starts flying back to avoid collision and meets the first train again at the other end. The bird keeps flying to and fro till the trains collide with each other.
What is the total distance that the supersonic bird has traveled till the trains collided?
In 2011, people playing Foldit, an online puzzle game about protein folding, resolved the structure of an enzyme that causes an Aids-like disease in monkeys. Researchers had been working on the problem for 13 years. The gamers solved it in three weeks.
