You are a thief and you are being punished for your crime. People have tied your head down on a tree with a rope that has been anchored in the ground. A candle is burning below the rope which is slowly burning it away. Just below your head, a Lion has been left loose and is waiting for you to drop down on the ground so he can have you as his lunch.
You have to survive the scenario. How will you do it?
A monk has a very specific ritual for climbing up the steps to the temple. First, he climbs up to the middle step and meditates for 1 minute. Then he climbs up 8 steps and faces east until he hears a bird singing. Then he walks down 12 steps and picks up a pebble. He takes one step up and tosses the pebble over his left shoulder. Now, he walks up the remaining steps three at a time which only takes him 9 paces. How many steps are there?
Two men are in a desert. They both have packs on. One of the guys is dead. The guy alive has his pack open, and the guy who is dead has his pack closed. What is in the pack?
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.
