A boy and his father are caught in a traffic accident, and the father dies. Immediately the boy is rushed to a hospital, suffering from injuries. But the attending surgeon at the hospital, upon seeing the boy, says 'I cannot operate. This boy is my son.' How is this situation explained?
In a science lab, a petri dish hosts a healthy colony of yeast for an experiment. Now every minute, all the yeast cells divide into two. At noon, there was just a single cell of yeast and at 1:22, the Petri dish was half full. Can you calculate when the dish will be full of yeast?
I can sizzle like bacon,
I am made with an egg,
I have plenty of backbone, but lack a good leg,
I peel layers like onions, but still remain whole,
I can be long, like a flagpole, yet fit in a hole.
A man plots the murder of his wife. His plan is full proof. Nobody saw them leaving their house. He stabbed her with a knife while driving. She died on the spot. He threw her body in a valley. He threw the knife carefully wiping his finger prints on a random garbage bin. Then he went back to his home and no one was watching him this time as well.
After an hour, he was called by the local police department who informed him that his wife was murdered. They asked him to reach the scene of crime immediately. But as soon as he arrived at the crime scene, he was arrested by them.
How did the police know that he himself is the murderer?
A devotee visits 9 temples when he visits India. All these nine temples have one thing in common - there are 100 steps in every temple. The devotee puts the Re.1 coin after climbing up every step. He does the same while climbing down every step. At each temple, the devotee offers half of his money from his pocket to god. In this way, his pocket becomes empty after he visits the 9th temple.
Can you calculate the total amount he had initially?
There are two beautiful yet remote islands in the South Pacific. The Islanders born on one island always tell the truth, and the Islanders from the other island always lie.
You are on one of the islands and meet three Islanders. You ask the first which island they are from in the most appropriate Polynesian tongue, and he indicates that the other two Islanders are from the same island. You ask the second Islander the same question, and he also indicates that the other two Islanders are from the same island.
Can you guess what the third Islander will answer to the same question?
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.