I have branches, but no fruit, trunk or leaves. What am I?

The below mentioned letters have been placed in a order using a logic.

DEAD, BALL, FEAR, SHOP

Can you find the logic?

I look at you, you look at me I raise my right, you raise your left. What am I?

In an Art Gallary, When the clock hit 11 am, Artist hung the painting number 30. When it struck 4 pm, he hung painting number 240 and when it struck 7:30 pm, he hung painting number 315.

Can you determine, which painting number will he hang when the time is 9:20 pm?

Can you find the dog hidden in a group of pandas?

You have two strings whose only known property is that when you light one end of either string it takes exactly one hour to burn. The rate at which the strings will burn is completely random and each string is different.

How do you measure 45 minutes?

Birbal was jester, counsellor, and fool to the great Moghul emperor, Akbar.
The villagers loved to talk of Birbal's wisdom and cleverness,
and the emperor loved to try to outsmart him.
One day Akbar (emperor) drew a line across the floor.
"Birbal," he ordered, "you must make this line shorter, but you cannot erase any bit of it."
Everyone present thought the emperor had finally outsmarted Birbal.
It was clearly an impossible task.
Yet within moments the emperor and everyone else present had to agree that Birbal had made the line shorter without erasing any of it.
How could this be?

Below, you can see some coding:
January = 1017
February = 628
March = 1335
April = 145
May = 1353
June = 1064
July = 1074
August = 186

Now deciphering the way it has been coded, can you find out how September will be coded?

A man lives on the fifteenth floor of an apartment building. Every morning he takes the elevator down to the lobby and leaves the building. In the evening, he gets into the elevator, and, if there is someone else in the elevator, or if it was raining that day, he goes back to his floor directly. Otherwise, he goes to the tenth floor and walks up five flights of stairs to his apartment. Can you explain why he does this?

One absent-minded ancient philosopher forgot to wind up his only clock in the house. He had no radio, TV, telephone, internet, or any other means for telling time. So he travelled on foot to his friend's place a few miles down the straight desert road. He stayed at his friend's house for the night and when he came back home, he knew how to set his clock. How did he know?