A man is lying dead in a field where no one is around. His head is split open and his legs are disfigured. Near to him, there is an unopened package. No living organism can be found anywhere at the crime scene.
If you paint a brown house white it will become a white house. If the stoplight changes from red to green, then the light is green. So, if you throw a white shirt into the Red Sea, what will it become?
Samuel was out for a walk when it started to rain. He did not have an umbrella and he wasn't wearing a hat. His clothes were soaked, yet not a single hair on his head got wet. How could this happen?
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.
Three men in a cafe order a meal the total cost of which is $15. They each contribute $5. The waiter takes the money to the chef who recognises the three as friends and asks the waiter to return $5 to the men.
The waiter is not only poor at mathematics but dishonest and instead of going to the trouble of splitting the $5 between the three he simply gives them $1 each and pockets the remaining $2 for himself.
Now, each of the men effectively paid $4, the total paid is therefore $12. Add the $2 in the waiters pocket and this comes to $14. Where has the other $1 gone from the original $15?
The king of Octopuses has servants who have six, seven or eight legs. The distinguishing characteristics of the servants is that the one with seven legs always lie but the one with either six or eight legs speak the truth always.
One day, four servants meet and converse:
The black one says, 'We have 28 legs altogether.'
The green one says, 'We have 27 legs altogether.'
The yellow one says, 'We have 26 legs altogether.'
The red one says, 'We have 25 legs altogether.'
Can you identify the colour of the servant who is speaking the truth?
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.