What 8 letter word can have a letter taken away and it still makes a word. Take another letter away and it still makes a word. Keep on doing that until you have one letter left. What is the word?

A Club organizes a Running Race, and John, Jacob, Minda, and Tony participated.

The results are as follows

John beats Jacob
Minda beats Toni
Toni beats John

Who came first in the race?

There are people and strange monkeys on this island, and you can not tell who is who (Edit: until you understand what they said - see below). They speak either only the truth or only lies.
Who are the following two guys?
A: B is a lying monkey. I am human.
B: A is telling the truth.

A blonde put eyeliner on her head. Why?

The barber of Town shaves all men living in the town. No man living in the town is allowed to shave himself. The barber lives in that town. Who then shaves the barber of the town?

A man is looking at a photograph of someone. His friend asks who it is. The man replies, “Brothers and sisters, I have none. But that man’s father is my father’s son.” Who was in the photograph?

You see me once in June, twice in November, and not at all in May. What am I?

I come in different shapes and sizes.
Parts of me are curved, other parts are straight.
You can put me anywhere you like,
but there is only one right place for me.
What am I?

The first box has two white balls. The second box has two black balls. The third box has a white and a black ball.

Boxes are labeled but all labels are wrong!

You are allowed to open one box, pick one ball at random, see its colour and put it back into the box, without seeing the colour of the other ball.

How many such operations are necessary to correctly label the boxes?

There are hundred red gems and hundred blue gems. The blue gems are priceless while the red gems equal wastage. You have two sacks one labeled Heads and the other Tails. You have to distribute the gems as you want in the two sacks. Then a coin will be flipped and you will be asked to pick up a gem randomly from the corresponding sacks.

How will you distribute the gems between the sacks so that the odds of picking a Blue gem are maximum?